BlockBeats news, on February 10, with the rebound of Bitcoin and U.S. stocks, the price of ETH rose back above $2,100. Previously, ETH had once plummeted 43% within 9 days, reaching a low of $1,750, followed by a technical rebound of about 22%. However, multiple data points indicate that the market remains cautious about the short-term movement of ETH.
In terms of the derivatives market, the annualized premium for ETH's two-month futures is only about 3%, below the neutral level of 5%, indicating insufficient risk appetite among traders, with the short side still dominant. Even with a price rebound, the sentiment in derivatives has not significantly improved over the past month.
From on-chain data and fundamentals, ETH has underperformed the overall crypto market by about 9% since 2026, raising questions about capital flows. However, in terms of TVL and transaction fee revenue, Ethereum still maintains an absolute lead: its mainnet accounts for 58% of the entire industry's TVL, and if Base, Arbitrum, and Optimism are included, the share exceeds 65%.
But the problem is equally prominent. Due to the slowdown in on-chain activity, Ethereum failed to maintain deflation, and the annualized ETH supply growth rate over the past 30 days has risen to 0.8%, significantly higher than the near 0% level a year ago. At the same time, issues surrounding Layer2 subsidies and security continue to escalate. Vitalik Buterin recently stated directly that there should be a renewed emphasis on mainnet scalability and acknowledged that some current L2 solutions have yet to meet the standards for decentralization and security.
The analysis suggests that, against the backdrop of rising uncertainty in the U.S. job market and doubts about the sustainability of AI infrastructure investments, overall risk appetite remains weak. The sluggishness in the derivatives market reflects investors' insufficient confidence in a sustainable reversal in ETH in the short term, and whether a short-term bottom has been confirmed still awaits further time and data validation.