BlockBeats News, June 13th. A bearish signal appeared in the ETH futures market. Data shows that the ETH perpetual futures annualized funding rate turned negative on June 5th, indicating that shorts are paying a premium to maintain their positions. Over the past 5 weeks, the ETH price has retraced by 30%, but longs are still unwilling to increase their risk exposure. The total open interest of ETH futures has decreased by 30% from a month ago, hitting a 13-month low; the US Ethereum spot ETF also saw a net outflow of $323 million in the past two weeks, indicating weak institutional demand.

On-chain activity is similarly under pressure. Ethereum network TVL has dropped by 33% to $37.5 billion in the past two months, and DApp income in May decreased by 43% compared to the previous 6 months, usually signaling a weakening in network fees and ETH usage demand. However, the demand for staking contrasts with the pessimism in the derivatives market. Currently, the queue time for ETH staking validators is around 50 days, with a queue size exceeding 2.9 million ETH; the queue time for unstaking is 0, with a total of 39.5 million ETH currently staked.

Meanwhile, ETH balances on exchanges have decreased from 16.15 million ETH three months ago to 15.05 million ETH, indicating continued accumulation by holders. CoinGecko data shows that BitMine has added 337,078 ETH in the past 30 days. The report suggests that the weak ETH long leverage demand should not be directly interpreted as a sharp increase in downside risk. As long as the staking metrics remain strong and spot ETF outflows stay within a relatively manageable range, the likelihood of ETH falling to $1,500 is low.