There’s $110 million riding on Ethereum’s price flopping in April.

Data from crypto derivatives exchange Deribit shows that options traders are stacking bearish bets on Ethereum, with $110 million poured into contracts that will pay out if the price doesn’t exceed $1,800 in April.

A hefty chunk of those bearish bets are bracing for Ethereum’s price to nosedive to $1,300.

“Ethereum short sells are at an all-time high [as] institutions are driving the price down,” Zach Burks, CEO of Mintology, an NFT platform, told DL News earlier in April.

Burks highlighted US President Donald Trump’s tariff hikes as a major problem not just for the crypto market but for Ethereum in particular.

“Crypto isn’t safe in the immediate term ― expect Ethereum to crater to $1,600,” Burks said.

Ethereum traded slightly above $1,600 on Tuesday, a 2% decline in the last 24 hours, in contrast to modest price upticks for Bitcoin and XRP, the first and third biggest cryptocurrencies.

The bleak outlook among options traders for Ethereum appears not to be strictly a trader’s gamble but a broad reflection of investor sentiment for the second-largest cryptocurrency.

Donald Trump

Ethereum’s malaise has triggered a wave of dumping by whale investors, including Trump-linked World Liberty.

In February, Trump’s son Eric Trump said: “It’s a great time to add Ethereum. You can thank me later.”

Ethereum’s price is down more than 40% since then, and the Trump family crypto project is dumping the asset for huge losses.

The DeFi project sold $8 million worth of Ethereum last week, according to data from Arkham Intelligence. The sale netted the project a 55% loss on its Ethereum investment.

Ethereum seems to have lost its swagger, and its community appears to be fraying on its edges. The price performance has been dismal even amid the broader crypto market slump.

Ethereum’s most recent price slump even wiped out major whales with huge loan positions backed by the asset. One such trader lost $74 million last week.

Even developer activity that used to be hot on Ethereum has begun to decline. Weekly code contributions on the network, a useful metric for developer activity, have slumped 67% this year.

And that’s not all — user activity on the network is also dwindling as the number of daily unique traders has dipped to its lowest level in 12 months.

With sentiments appearing to sour, the stakes are existential for Ethereum.

“It’s time to face reality,” said web3 marketer Stacy Muur last week. “This isn’t the ‘efficiency zone,’ I’m afraid. This is stagnation.”

XRP closing in

XRP could be one of the biggest winners if Ethereum is unable to get out of its current funk. Geoff Kendrick, global head of digital assets research at UK bank Standard Chartered, sees XRP eclipsing Ethereum by 2028.

But not everyone is singing the funeral dirge for Ethereum. Amid the scepticism and lamentation, one BlackRock executive says there are reasons to be optimistic.

Robbie Mitchnick, Blackrock’s digital assets chief, said in March that Ethereum was always going to be the bedrock for the asset manager’s tokenisation drive.

Mitchnick also defended Ethereum exchange-traded funds’ disappointing performance and said the addition of staking feature to the investment vehicle would usher in a new phase for Ethereum ETFs.

Osato Avan-Nomayo is our Nigeria-based DeFi correspondent. He covers DeFi and tech. Got a tip? Please contact him at osato@dlnews.com.