Ethereum Plunges 15% in a Week as Record Staking Rate Fails to Hold $2,000 Mark

TradingKey - Ethereum's staking ratio has surged to an all-time high, yet its price has plunged 15% over the past seven days, putting the key $2,000 psychological threshold at risk.

On November 12, Ethereum (ETH) trended lower amid volatility, falling more than 1% to approach the $2,000 mark. Amid a wave of severe deleveraging across the crypto market in early November 2026, the price of ETH plunged approximately 15% in just one week, dropping sharply from around $2,446 to $2,045.

Although on-chain data shows that the ETH staking ratio has bucked the trend to hit an all-time high, demonstrating strong lock-up confidence among long-term holders and validator nodes, the key $2,000 psychological threshold faces a severe risk of being breached under the dual pressures of tightening macroeconomic liquidity and persistent net outflows from institutional spot ETFs.

According to data from Token Terminal, Ethereum's network-wide staking ratio has broken all-time records, reaching 36.32% of total circulating supply, up 4.32 percentage points against the trend since May this year. While this has reduced spot selling pressure on exchanges, buy-side liquidity in the secondary market remains extremely thin.

As Layer 2 data compression efficiency has improved significantly, gas fees paid to the Ethereum mainnet have declined, leading to a sharp drop in the amount of ETH burned via EIP-1559 and weakening the market's valuation premium for its deflationary narrative. Consequently, even with more than a third of the supply locked in staking contracts, contracting supply alone has struggled to boost token prices.

In addition, U.S. October headline and core CPI both exceeded expectations, and several Federal Reserve officials stated that they could not rule out resuming rate hikes in December. Bitcoin decisively lost its strong support level at $75,000, dragging ETH lower. Furthermore, dominated by risk-off sentiment, existing market capital fled back into Bitcoin for safe-haven protection, making Ethereum one of the hardest-hit major assets in this market correction.

Currently, the ETH price is testing the $2,000 defense line. Ahead of the upcoming release of U.S. PPI data and the Federal Reserve meeting minutes, Bitcoin is highly likely to continue trending lower to test the $70,000 mark, significantly raising the probability of ETH briefly spiking below $2,000 in the short term. If it decisively breaks below that level, ETH will open up downside room and could fall further to retest $1,500.

ETH Price Chart, Source: TradingView