Outflows from U.S. ETFs tracking Ethereum's spot price hit $197 million on Monday—the second-highest figure ever for daily withdrawals.
The sell-offs come as the queue for unstaking ETH also surged to new records, with $3.9 billion worth of withdrawals now pending.
BRN Head of Research Timothy Misir warned both factors are "pressuring near-term sentiment."
In a note to investors, he argued $4,400 is now a crucial support level for the world's second-largest cryptocurrency. At the time of writing, Ethereum is flat compared to yesterday, trading at $4,203.84, according to price aggregator CoinGecko.
The outflows come days after ETH failed to secure a fresh all-time high above $4,891.70, which was set back in November 2021. It peaked around $4,776.32 on Thursday, August 14.
All signs point to investors taking profits off the table after Ethereum surged by 66% in the space of a year, attracting a slew of institutional interest.
Ethereum ETFs hold 5.08% of this digital asset's supply, but Misir believes the portion of Ethereum sitting in ETFs could overtake the 6.38% worth of Bitcoin held in ETFs "if the current inflow pace is sustained."
Bitcoin funds weren't immune from these outflows on Monday, but suffered a less modest draw of $122 million by comparison.
Despite BTC also retracing from an all-time high of $124,457.12 last Thursday, Misir argued that whales are continuing to accumulate—with 20,061 BTC added to wallets holding at least 10,000 coins over the past six days.
The pullback happened as Donald Trump invited European leaders to the White House to discuss the war in Ukraine, days after a much-anticipated summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin resulted in no deal being reached.
"Crypto remains sensitive to these signals," Misir wrote, adding that the prospect of further negotiations could bolster risk appetite among investors.
For now, he argues that Bitcoin enjoys "structural support" in the $115,000 range—and a break above $121,000 would pave the way for a retest of the zone between $123,000 and $127,000.
"Geopolitical developments around U.S.–Ukraine–Russia trilateral talks now inject additional two-way risk: a ceasefire could catalyze BTC’s push above $120K, while escalation risks argue for caution. Defensive positioning and selective accumulation remain the prudent approach," Misir wrote.
