Analysis: Bearish signals have emerged in the ETH futures market, but staking demand and BitMine's increased holdings may limit the downside.

According to Mars Finance, bearish signals emerged in the ETH futures market on June 13th. Data shows that the annualized funding rate for ETH perpetual futures turned negative on June 5th, indicating that short sellers are paying a premium to maintain their positions. ETH prices have corrected by 30% over the past five weeks, but long positions remain reluctant to increase risk exposure. Total open interest in ETH futures has decreased by 30% compared to a month ago, hitting a 13-month low; the US spot Ethereum ETF also recorded a net outflow of $323 million over the past two weeks, indicating weak institutional demand. On-chain activity is also under pressure. Ethereum network TVL has decreased by 33% to $37.5 billion in two months, and DApp revenue in May decreased by 43% compared to the previous six months, typically indicating weakening network fees and ETH usage demand. However, staking demand contrasts with the pessimistic sentiment in the derivatives market. Currently, the waiting time for ETH staking validators to enter the queue is approximately 50 days, with over 2.9 million ETH in the queue; the waiting time to exit the queue is 0, with a current total of 39.5 million ETH in staked status. Meanwhile, the total ETH holdings on trading platforms decreased from 16.15 million ETH three months ago to 15.05 million ETH, indicating that holders are still accumulating. CoinGecko data shows that BitMine added 337,078 ETH in the past 30 days. The report argues that weak demand for leveraged long positions in ETH should not be directly interpreted as a sharp increase in downside risk. As long as staking metrics remain stable and outflows from spot ETFs remain within a relatively controllable range, the likelihood of ETH falling to $1,500 is low.