Ether Eyes First Ever Three-Quarter Loss as Binance Reserves Rise

Ether is one quarter away from its first-ever three-quarter losing streak after posting declines in Q4 2025 and Q1 2026. Q2 2026 is underway and market participants are tracking price action, exchange reserves and fund flows to see whether the token can avoid a third straight quarterly loss.

Price and relative performance data show ether has dropped about 21% since the start of 2026 and has fallen more than 35% versus bitcoin over the past year. At the time of reporting, ether traded near $2,337 and bitcoin near $81,920.

Exchange data shows Binance’s exchange ETH reserves have climbed to roughly 3.62 million ether, about 24.6% of the ether held on exchanges. Higher exchange reserves increase the volume of tokens immediately available for trading, a factor market participants monitor as potential sell-side capacity.

Futures open interest for ether registered a modest uptick over the past 24 hours, indicating a small increase in derivatives activity.

Institutional treasuries continue to add to holdings. BitMine Immersion Technologies bought another 26,659 ETH last week, bringing its total above 5.2 million ETH, roughly 4.3% of circulating supply. More than 90% of those holdings are reported staked through BitMine’s MAVAN staking platform. The firm reduced its weekly purchase pace after prior weeks of larger buys.

The Ethereum Foundation completed unstaking and sales valued at about $49.6 million. Foundation sales have been described as routine operational transactions used to fund grants, salaries and development.

Institutional inflows into crypto exchange-traded funds remained active last week. Crypto ETFs recorded approximately $858 million in net inflows, with bitcoin-linked ETFs taking in about $622 million and ether-focused ETFs about $70 million.

Some technical analysts point to recent price action showing ether failing to hold key support levels and compare the move to a sharp decline seen in 2024. One set of technical scenarios projects ether could fall further against bitcoin if current patterns continue.

Tom Lee, a market strategist, said, “If ETH closes above $2,100 at the end of May, that would be the third consecutive monthly gain.” He identified tokenization on Wall Street and developments in agentic artificial intelligence as potential long-term catalysts for ethereum demand.

Market participants will watch Q2 price action, changes in exchange reserves and ETF flows to determine whether ether avoids a three-quarter losing streak or whether higher exchange holdings lead to increased selling pressure.