Rich by Coin

Is Ethereum at risk as $3B in leverage builds before the FOMC?
Ethereum activity picks up ahead of FOMC – Healthy trend or risky bet?
The market is cooling off after tagging weekly highs.
On the daily timeframe, most top caps are pulling back.

That said, this comes after a strong early-week rally, during which many assets reclaimed key levels for the first time in nearly eight weeks of sideways action.
In that context, the “dip” appears more like a reset than a genuine weakness.
ETH is down 3% from its weekly high of $3.4k.
Still, it’s up 7% from the open, showing that the broader weekly structure remains intact despite the pullback.

On the derivatives side, speculative liquidity has been piling up, with nearly $3 billion added to ETH’s Open Interest (OI) this week alone.
Meanwhile, on Binance the ETHUSDT perp contract has averaged a 60% long skew.
Put together with Ethereum’s price action, there’s a clear tension between technical strength and speculative bets.
Now, macro volatility comes into play, with the next FOMC meeting less than two weeks away.

Given this setup, is ETH’s 3% pullback just a dip, or the start of an unwind?
In the current market, sitting on the sidelines makes sense.
Glassnode shows a spike in activity retention for the “New” cohort, meaning first-time interacting addresses are surging.
Moreover, new wallets hit an all-time high of 393k.
Naturally, this raises the question: What’s attracting all these new wallets, especially amid ongoing market FUD and ETH’s technical divergences?

Notably, the answer seems to lie in Ethereum’s solid network fundamentals.
As the chart shows, Ethereum’s daily transactions just hit a record high.
To put it in context, the network saw 2.8 million transactions on the 15th of January, a 55% jump from just a week ago.
This is more than double the typical activity, highlighting rising engagement and strong confidence in the network.
Paired with the surge in wallets, ETH’s fundamentals are showing strength.
Record daily transactions and a surge in new wallets highlight growing network activity and investor conviction, providing technical support amid market FUD.

Ethereum faces a delicate balance as macro volatility looms with the FOMC meeting approaching.
After a strong early-week rally, ETH is roughly 3% below its weekly high near $3.4k, but remains about 7% higher than the open, indicating the weekly structure stays intact despite the pullback.
In the derivatives market, nearly $3 billion was added to ETH’s Open Interest this week, and the ETHUSDT perpetual contract on Binance has averaged a 60% long skew, signaling a split between technical strength and speculative bets.
On-chain activity is picking up, with Glassnode reporting a spike in retention for new addresses and new wallets reaching an all-time high of 393k.

The network also recorded a record 2.8 million daily transactions on January 15, a 55% jump from a week earlier, underscoring rising engagement and confidence in Ethereum’s fundamentals amid market FUD.
Taken together, these fundamentals suggest solid network strength backing ETH even as macro risk weighs on prices.
The divergence between price action and on-chain momentum may fuel additional volatility as traders reassess risk around the FOMC outcome.