There is an old saying in the crypto world: "Macro is the sky, leverage is the knife, emotion is the ghost." Recently, ETH's performance has truly understood these three aspects.

The Federal Reserve's statement that "rate cuts may hit the brakes" directly changed market expectations. Originally, everyone was betting on continued easing, but the official implication was that there would be no more rate cuts in the future. This immediately shut down the imagination space for cryptocurrency liquidity. You see, since ETH peaked at 3448 on December 10, it has been declining steadily. On Black Friday, it directly broke below 3100, and today it is repeatedly testing between 3050 and 3100. Essentially, it's a "expectation reversal killing leverage" scenario.

The data best explains the situation. In the past 24 hours, ETH longs have been liquidated for $146 million. These were retail traders with 5x or 10x leverage above 3200, who were cut down thoroughly by this policy change.

An even more interesting detail is: the net outflow of ETH from exchanges was 8.15 million coins, but on-chain staking actually increased by 0.3%. What does this indicate? The big players are not moving; only small retail traders chasing the rally and selling are fleeing. Remember the surge on December 10? Exchange ETH reserves temporarily increased by 120 million, clearly a sign of retail FOMO. Now, at the 3050 level, we see medium-sized whales adding to their staking on Lido—this is the rhythm of "smart money." When others panic, it's precisely the opportunity to deploy.