Futures positions hit record highs as Ethereum fell below $2000, indicating that market short sentiment is heating

ETH fell below $2000 for the first time since March this year. ETH has fallen by nearly 8% in the past seven days, including more than 5% in the past 24 hours. At the same time, open interest (OI) in ETH futures rose for the third consecutive day and hit a record high of 16.39 million ETH items, with a nominal value of approximately US$32.5 billion. Analysts believe that against the background of falling spot prices, the continued rise in OI means that the market is experiencing more aggressive leveraged short behavior. Markus Thielen, founder of 10xResearch, said that more and more investors are giving up ETH."ETH does not generate cash flow, and in the context of rising U.S. bond yields, pledge yields are less attractive." In addition, the cumulative net outflow of U.S. spot ETHTF this month was US$401 million, which has completely reversed the net inflow of US$354 million in April. Market sentiment also continued to deteriorate due to the departure of core members of the Ethereum Foundation. Bankless co-founder David Hoffman also previously said that he had sold his ETH position and believed that the "ETH is a currency" narrative had been fully priced. Web3 research firm HouseofChimera said that the market is questioning whether the advantages of the Ethereum ecosystem in the fields of DeFi, RWA and tokenization can truly be fed back into the ETH token itself.