On September 8th, Ethereum continued to consolidate below $2,500, reaching a high of $2,507.99 during the day before falling back to around $2,475. In the past few days, ETH has mostly fluctuated between $2,450 and $2,550, with the middle of this range being crossed back and forth multiple times, but no sustained direction has been formed.
Short-term trading is still restricted by the range.
From a 4-hour chart perspective, the middle band of the Bollinger Bands is around $2484.76, which serves as the nearest resistance level at present. Only if the price manages to retest this level will there be a chance for the market to further test the upper band around $2516.64 and once again approach the resistance zone between $2540 and $2550.
The recent support level below is around $2452.87, which corresponds to the lower band of the Bollinger Bands. If ETH continues to decline but manages to hold this range, the overall trend will still be within a consolidation zone; however, once it clearly breaks below $2450, the price could further fall to around $2400.
The Average Directional Index ADX has currently dropped to 11.1. Typically, this level indicates a weaker trend, which is also consistent with the ETH pattern since the end of August, which has been characterized by multiple reversals and a lack of continuity.
Macroeconomic expectations suppress risky assets
U.S. employment data surpassed market expectations, putting pressure on risky assets including Ethereum. In August, the U.S. added 162,000 new jobs, significantly higher than the market's initial forecast of around 53,000, with the unemployment rate remaining at 4.1%.
After the data was released, market expectations for the Federal Reserve to further tighten policy at its September meeting increased. Reuters cited market pricing, stating that traders once bet that the probability of a rate hike in September was around 60%. When interest rate expectations rise, funds tend to flow towards lower-risk assets such as government bonds, while more volatile crypto assets are more likely to be suppressed.
At the same time, rising international oil prices have also increased concerns about inflation. Reuters reports that due to the conflict in the Middle East, Brent crude oil rose to $98.66 per barrel on September 8. Next, the data from the United States PPI and CPI will become the new focus of market attention.
The liquidation-intensive area is close to the upper and lower boundaries.
CoinGlass The three-day liquidation heat map shows that there is a relatively high concentration of liquidity around the $2,455 range, indicating that there are many leveraged long positions near the lower boundary of the current range. If the price falls below $2,450, it may trigger more long liquidations, accelerating the decline towards $2,400.
On the other side, there is also a relatively high level of liquidity in the range of $2515 to $2520, while the area above that, from $2540 to $2550, has a larger scale of clearing activity. This means that if ETH manages to regain the $2500 level and continues to rise, short covering could push prices to test the upper edge of that range again.
In the past 24 hours, approximately $29 million in positions in Ethereum futures were liquidated, with an outstanding contract size of around $33.3 billion. Overall, ETH is still caught between two liquidity targets; $2450 corresponds to the downside risk for shorts, while $2515 and $2550 are the main observation levels for the upside.
$2,400 remains a key support level.
Some analysts believe that as long as ETH continues to remain above $2,400, a larger upward structure has not been disrupted. The current consolidation phase is more like an accumulation of liquidity within a range, rather than a reversal of the trend.
However, in the short term, ETH is still in a neutral state. If the price cannot effectively break through the resistance above $2517, the range-bound pattern will be difficult to change; if it falls below $2450, the market's testing pressure on the $2400 level will increase significantly.
