On January 29, 2026, at 8:00 AM UTC+8, ETH suddenly accelerated its decline during trading, breaking through the key short-term support level of $2800, attracting significant market attention. Data from multiple trading platforms and information sources indicate that ETH's decline over the past 24 hours was approximately in the range of 6.84%–6.94%, with the total liquidation scale across the network around $575–665 million. The relevant statistics are compiled from multiple sources, and some are still pending verification. The core of this round of movement lies in the resonance formed by the price breaking through technical thresholds and the concentrated liquidation of high-leverage long positions, amplifying selling pressure in a short time, evolving into a typical "leveraged cascading liquidation" crash, rather than a linear correction driven by a single negative news event.
Loss of Technical Support and Intraday Rhythm
● Meaning of Key Support: Around $2800, this area has been a key defensive zone for short-term bulls over a period of time, as well as a price range with significant chip turnover and dense trading. From a technical structure perspective, this range is both the lower edge of the previous oscillation platform and a stop-loss reference point for some trend traders. Once it is broken with volume, it often triggers programmatic selling and passive reduction, becoming a watershed for short-term sentiment reversal.
● Intraday Price Rhythm: In the morning of January 29, ETH continued its previous range oscillation pattern, with narrow fluctuations at high levels, and the market still held expectations for the continuation of the bulls. However, as selling pressure gradually intensified, the price repeatedly tested the support near $2800 without effectively stabilizing, ultimately breaking through this level quickly, triggering a chain sell-off, with the decline expanding to approximately 6.8%–6.9% within 24 hours, forming a typical rhythm switch from "high-level oscillation" to "accelerated decline."
● Multi-source Price Verification: According to data from multiple trading platforms and information sources such as OKX, HTX, and Golden Finance, the 24-hour decline of ETH concentrated in a narrow range of 6.84%–6.94%, indicating that the price direction and magnitude across platforms are generally consistent. Considering the slight differences in pricing standards and time frames across different platforms, this article only uses range expressions to avoid exaggerating volatility with a single extreme value, aiming to more objectively restore the characteristics of the market on that day.
$600 Million Liquidation Wave and Leverage Structure
● Network-wide Liquidation Range: With ETH breaking below $2800, a large-scale forced liquidation occurred in the network-wide contract market within 24 hours. Relevant statistics show that the total scale of liquidations across the network is approximately between $575–665 million. The above data is compiled from multiple market and derivatives tracking platforms, and some figures are still marked as pending verification. The differences mainly arise from the statistical scope (whether to include some smaller platforms) and different time frames, so it is more appropriate to view them as reasonable ranges rather than single precise values.
● ETH-related Liquidation Proportion: In this round of network-wide liquidation wave, the liquidation scale related to ETH contracts is roughly in the range of $88–117 million, accounting for a certain proportion of the overall liquidation. Due to differences in how various data sources define "ETH-related" (whether to include cross-currency margin, combined margin, etc.), only a range estimate can be provided to reflect ETH's weight in this round of forced liquidations, and no single point value should be treated as an absolutely precise official statistic.
● Concentrated Trigger of Leverage Longs: Multiple media and market comments point out that "the concentrated liquidation of leveraged longs" is a core feature of this round of crash. After ETH's price fell below $2800, a large number of high-leverage long positions hanging near the key support were successively triggered for forced liquidation, further increasing market selling pressure. As the price continued to decline, lower strong liquidation price levels were triggered in sequence, forming a typical "chain liquidation" structure, amplifying selling momentum in a short time.
● Leverage Amplification Path: From a technical mechanism perspective, high-leverage positions in a one-sided market amplify volatility through the path of insufficient margin—passive reduction—forced liquidation selling. When the price approaches a key range, the margin ratio of some accounts rapidly deteriorates, triggering the platform's risk control system to automatically reduce positions and issue forced liquidation orders. These passive sell orders, in a situation of limited liquidity, will break through buy orders downward, causing rapid price gaps, which in turn drag more high-leverage positions to hit risk lines, ultimately evolving into a waterfall decline in a short time.
Institutional Margin and Sudden Shift in Sentiment
● Institutional Margin Signals: According to reports citing data from Trend Research and other institutions, before and after this round of market movement, some institutions experienced significant margin adjustments or position changes, which the market views as a side signal of increased leverage levels and shifts in risk appetite. The increase in margin for institutions in futures and derivatives reflects both a strengthened bet on the bullish market and implies that once prices move in the opposite direction, the overall leverage sensitivity will significantly increase.
● Sentiment Shift from Optimism to Panic: Planet Daily commented that "the price breaking through key levels and concentrated liquidations resonate, indicating a sudden shift in short-term sentiment for ETH." While the $2800 level was still stable, the mainstream narrative in the market leaned towards "bullish correction and accumulation of strength"; however, after the key support was breached and liquidation data rapidly expanded, the narrative shifted to "risk aversion, reducing leverage, locking in profits," with the risk appetite of funds switching from aggressive offense to defensive mode in a short time, leading to greater emotional fluctuations than the fundamental changes themselves.
● Institutional vs. Retail Gamification: In the leveraged structure involving both institutions and retail investors, institutional funds often change their exposure first by adjusting margins in advance, reducing positions in batches, or hedging, thereby creating a "demonstration effect" on overall expectations. When some institutions actively reduce leverage or close high-risk positions, price elasticity correspondingly decreases, and once signals of breaking through key levels appear, the delayed response of high-leverage retail investors and chasing funds is more likely to be pressured in passive forced liquidations, ceding short-term dominance.
Macroeconomic Pressure with Bitcoin and Gold Declining Together
● Overall Risk Appetite in Crypto Falls: During the same period, Bitcoin broke below the $85,000 mark (according to HTX data), weakening in sync with ETH, indicating that this round of pressure is not isolated to a single public chain or asset, but rather a broader cooling of risk appetite in the crypto market. The simultaneous pullback of leading assets suggests that funds are reassessing the overall risk-return structure of crypto assets at a higher dimension, rather than targeting individual technical or ecological negatives.
● Traditional Safe-Haven Assets Under Pressure: The precious metals market also showed unusual movements; according to Bitget data, spot gold prices broke below $5400 and $5300. According to traditional logic, when risk assets are under pressure, safe-haven assets like gold often benefit; however, this round saw gold and crypto assets decline together, indicating that the market is facing broader macro uncertainties rather than a simple rotation of funds from "risk assets" to "safe-haven assets."
● Macroeconomic and Political Uncertainty: Deep Tide TechFlow cited data from Jin10, indicating that U.S. political factors may affect market risk appetite. In a context of uncertainty regarding macro and policy outlooks, cross-asset fund management tends to be more conservative, often opting to compress overall risk exposure rather than significantly hedging across different assets. In such an environment, whether it is ETH, BTC, or gold, all may face pressure simultaneously, with price corrections reflecting more of a cross-market "risk contraction" rather than specific negative impacts on a particular currency.
Data Boundaries and Risk Warnings
● Interval Attributes of Liquidation Data: The network-wide liquidation of approximately $575–665 million and ETH-related liquidation of approximately $88–117 million cited in this article are compiled from multiple platforms and different statistical standards, with some sources still in a pending verification state. Readers should clarify the interval estimates and unofficial nature of these data when relaying or using them, avoiding the dissemination of any single point value as an accurate metric to prevent misinterpretation or exaggeration in social media and secondary references.
● Absence of Sentiment Indicators: The current market lacks unified, authoritative, and real-time publicly available sentiment quantification indicators, and the research brief does not provide corresponding official data support. Therefore, emotionally charged labels like "extreme fear" are not suitable for quantitative descriptions of this event. A more cautious approach is to indirectly infer changes in sentiment through objective variables such as price volatility, changes in leverage structure, and trading activity, rather than simply applying emotional index terminology.
● Technical Gamification and Trend Judgments: From the current information, this round of ETH's crash reflects more of a technical gamification of high leverage levels combined with the loss of key technical positions, rather than a systematic overturning of fundamental logic. Simplistically extrapolating a leveraged liquidation event as a complete reversal of long-term trends risks overlooking the amplifying effect of derivatives structures on short-term prices. Investors should interpret this market movement in conjunction with multi-dimensional information such as cycles, fundamentals, and macro environments, rather than reconstructing long-term judgments based solely on a sudden drop.
Subsequent Observations Under the Shadow of Leverage
● Review of Crash Drivers: Integrating price and derivatives data, the main line of ETH's sharp decline in this round is the resonance of breaking the $2800 technical level and the concentrated liquidation of high-leverage longs, rather than stemming from a single fundamental negative or on-chain event. Once the key support is breached, the leveraged positions hanging in that area are triggered for forced liquidation in bulk, amplifying short-term downward volatility in an environment with limited liquidity support, forming a crash driven by the combined force of "technical + structural."
● Key Monitoring Indicators: Looking ahead, to assess the quality of ETH's rebound and whether the trend is repaired, several signals need to be closely tracked: first, the changes in total market leverage and funding rates, observing whether there is a sustained deleveraging; second, the subsequent scale and direction of liquidations, checking whether forced liquidations expand from one-sided longs to a balanced long-short situation; third, whether the price can rebuild a similar solid support range around $2800 in the new round of oscillation, and whether the trading density and chip structure in that area are healthy.
● Risk Management and Macroeconomic Linkages: In the context of macro uncertainty and intensified cross-asset volatility, investors should pay more attention to leverage ratio control and risk exposure management, avoiding excessive use of high leverage near key price levels. Attention should also be paid to the evolution of macro events such as U.S. political uncertainty, as these factors may have a far greater impact on the interconnected shocks to crypto assets and traditional assets like gold than can be explained by changes in the fundamentals of a single currency. Only when the price structure, leverage levels, and macro environment resonate positively will the sustainability of the rebound have a more solid foundation.
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