Ethereum’s supply mechanism limited selling pressure and kept losses smaller than a typical Bitcoin correction.
Bitcoin’s sharp decline from around $107,000 on Nov. 11 to a low of around $81,000 on Nov. 21 spooked traders across the market.
However, new on-chain data shows that this is first and foremost a Bitcoin panic and not an Ethereum meltdown.
A tale of two sales
XWIN Research Japan’s analysis shows how the October-November correction split the two majors. Bitcoin, which has been indexed since October 1st, had fallen to the low 70s by late November, while Ethereum had fallen to the low 60s.
Historically, a 30% drop in BTC has often meant a 40-50% hit in ETH, but this time the gap remained unusually narrow, indicating that the latter held up better than usual despite widespread fear.
The reason is on the chain. Since the merger, EIP-1559 continues to remove coins from circulation during busy periods while ETH shares are locked into staking. This means fewer tokens will be released when the market panics.
In contrast, Bitcoin saw a clear surge in liquidations on November 21st, coinciding with reports that nearly $2 billion in positions were wiped out in a single day, as the asset briefly tumbled toward $81,000, then rebounded above $84,000, and then regained levels near $88,000 over the weekend.
BTC is currently trading around $86,000, down about 10% in the week, 19% in two weeks, and 23% in the month. Meanwhile, ETH is hovering around $2,800, down about 12% for the week, 22% in 14 days, and 29% for the month. It hurts, but it’s not as damaging as past cycles.
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Meanwhile, Bitcoin’s MVRV ratio, a key on-chain valuation metric, has fallen from around 2.5 at the beginning of 2025 to around 1.5 in this sell-off, a zone that often indicates a deep mid-cycle reset rather than a final high.
ETH leverage is a ticking time bomb, but supply is fine
Despite the seemingly positive news for the world’s second-largest digital asset, other market technologists say the calming situation for physical ETH masks a dangerous rise in derivatives.
According to CryptoOnchain, Ethereum’s estimated leverage ratio on Binance rose to a record 0.562 even as the price fell from around $4,200 to $2,800.
In other words, traders continued to accumulate leveraged longs while the charts were trending down, leaving the market open to another wave of liquidations if the cryptocurrency took another step down.
Some analysts are calling the current situation a “zebra market,” a term coined by XWIN Research to describe an environment defined by sharp, black-and-white price movements rather than sustained bullish or bearish trends.
In situations like this, on-chain data becomes an important tool for separating the signal from the noise, and for now they are framing this episode as a choppy mid-cycle BTC-led flash rather than the beginning of an Ethereum failure.
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