Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) has had a rough month. The ETH price trades around $2,012, down from over $2,300 in early May, with ETF outflows piling up again and Fear & Greed dropping into extreme fear territory.
But the on-chain picture looks different. The biggest holders did the opposite of what most investors did, adding more than $2 billion in ETH while smaller holders sold. The last time long-term holders sold the way they did in February, ETH dropped 19% in four weeks, but that selling pressure hasn’t returned.
How Whales Added $2 Billion in ETH While Price Bled
The accumulation shows up clearly in Santiment’s on-chain data, even though the chart doesn’t show it. Between May 1 and May 29, Santiment’s metric tracking Ethereum supply held by non-exchange whale wallets rose from 124.15 million ETH to 125.17 million ETH. That is a net gain of just over one million ETH, worth more than $2 billion at current prices.
Over the same window, ETH dropped roughly 12%. The whales took profits along the way, but added more than they sold on net. The Santiment filter excludes exchanges, custodians, and staking pools, stripping out the wallets that move ETH around for operational reasons rather than investment intent. What’s left is the most honest read on what big investors are doing.
Santiment also posted on May 28 that wallets holding at least 100,000 ETH now collectively hold 17.41 million tokens, the most in nine weeks. Those wallets account for 22.03% of the entire ETH supply, a ten-week high. Different metric, same direction.
Wallets this large tend to sell more often than they buy, with shorter buyback phases in between. So this accumulation may not last. But the fact that it is happening during a price drop is what makes the current setup worth watching.
Why This ETH Drawdown Looks Nothing Like February’s
Glassnode’s Hodler Net Position Change tracks whether wallets that have held ETH for five months or more are adding to their positions or selling them off. Green on the chart means accumulation, while red means distribution.
The metric has been green continuously since February 24 and has accelerated since mid-May. Long-term holders have not sold through this drawdown.
The same metric turned deeply red through early February 2026, when ETH had its worst stretch of the year. The Ethereum price fell from around $2,269 at the start of February to roughly $1,837 by month-end, a 19% decline in four weeks, with intramonth lows near $1,750. ETF outflows accelerated, long-term holders sold heavily, and the price followed both. It was the only period all year when the Glassnode metric flipped red.
This time, the price is down, sentiment is bad, and ETF flows are negative again, but the long-term holders who sold in February are not selling now.
What ETH’s Chart Says About a Bounce vs a Reversal
Ethereum’s chart is sending its own signal, and it lines up with the on-chain data on direction. Where they part ways is on how far a recovery could run.
A pattern called hidden bullish divergence has been forming on the Ethereum chart since late March. ETH’s price has been printing higher lows over the period, but the RSI, a momentum indicator that measures the speed and force of price moves, has been printing lower lows.
When price and momentum disagree like this in a downtrend, it usually means sellers are running out of steam before a real bounce arrives. It is an exhaustion signal, not a reversal one.
For the setup to hold, Ethereum’s next two-day candle needs to close above $1,964. A two-day close below that level invalidates the divergence and opens lower targets, with the 1.0 Fibonacci level at $1,798 the only meaningful support before $1,545.
What the pattern points to is a relief bounce—a recovery rally inside a broader downtrend, not the start of a new uptrend. The whale and long-term holder accumulation gives that bounce more support than the chart on its own would, but neither signal is calling a full cycle bottom.
What This Means for ETH Holders
The biggest holders in Ethereum spent the last month buying through a 12% price drop, the long-term holders who sold heavily in February have not sold this time, and the chart is showing momentum exhaustion that usually arrives before a bounce. That is a meaningful combination, even if none of it on its own proves a bottom is in.
Whether the bounce shows up depends on three things: ETH closing a two-day candle above $1,964, Glassnode’s hodler metric staying green, and whales adding rather than starting to move ETH back to exchanges. If all three hold over the next two weeks, the relief bounce the chart is pointing to has stronger on-chain backing than usual. But if any of them break, the recovery loses its base before it starts.
Either way, the $2 billion accumulation does not guarantee a rally—it just means the biggest holders are positioned to benefit from one if it comes.
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