Ethereum plunged straight to 2,405 last night, then slowly clawed its way back to the 2,500 mark. Plenty of people are getting antsy again, wondering whether that long lower wick marks a rock-bottom price and whether they can blindly chase a major reversal.#ETH
My view is straightforward: no big money is coming in at all. Above 2,500 is just a bluff—a dead-cat bounce. I’d rather look for an entry to short in the resistance zone.
In the afternoon, the junior drove over, with a lady in the passenger seat.
The lady runs a tutoring business in a township and drives a Mercedes C260. Someone had casually set her up as a blind date for the junior. He dropped her off, then took his medical records to Central Hospital to pick up medicine for his mother. He also had to pick up President Song—the battery in his beat-up Subaru was dead, and it wouldn’t start.
The older woman and I sat down in the tea room and chatted about her tutoring business.
The older woman used to do children’s photography, then moved into running an after-school program and teaching essay writing. A few years ago, when ‘big Chinese’ education was all the rage, she went to Beijing to buy a franchise. These past two years, with AI in fashion, she went to Shenzhen to buy course materials. She’s been running herself ragged, from dawn till dark, and going around in circles.
I asked, “How much do you actually make in a year?”
She said, “Back when business was good, net profit could reach a little over 200,000 yuan. Now gross profit is only around 80,000 to 100,000, and the books don’t add up if I hire another teacher.”
I said, “There are fewer and fewer people in the townships. With things the way they are, just not losing money is something to be grateful for.”
She said, “It’s mostly that I’m mentally and physically exhausted. There are fewer students now, and when summer vacation comes, the big institutions from the county town even come out to the countryside to poach them. They’ll tear through stacks of flyers and get into fistfights right there in the street just to recruit a few kids.”
I said, “There are only a couple of pieces of meat in the pot. When too many people are fighting over them, it’s bound to get ugly.”
She said, “The real problem is that parents are especially hard to deal with these days. They’ve only got a thousand or so yuan to spare, and they’re putting it all on their kids. They insist that you promise exactly how many points their scores will improve.”
“This is their all-or-nothing gamble,” I said. “The fewer chips they have in hand, the more unrealistic their expectations become. They wish they could pay two thousand yuan and buy a spot at a top high school.”
She said, “If we don’t sell them a dream, we can’t even collect this little bit of tuition.”
I said, “You’re promising far too much. If you can’t deliver results by the end of the term, the people who used to call you ‘teacher’ at every turn will come knocking on your door and make your life hell. The deepest hatred in human nature grows out of interests that can’t be reconciled and expectations that have been dashed.”
She said, “I know I’m just barely holding on. I open up in the morning and lock up at night. I cook and clean myself, and double as the security guard and janitor. I don’t dare stop—if I do, even this little bit of cash flow will disappear.”
I said, “No matter how impressive your storefront looks, without a steady stream of new people paying to come in, you can’t keep things afloat just by tightening your belt and toughing it out. The books will eventually fall apart.”
After they left, the tea had gone completely cold. I went back to my computer and took a look at the evening’s market.
Last night, ETH plunged straight down to 2405, and quite a few people using high leverage were completely liquidated on the spot. Over the next few hours, the price wobbled its way back to the 2500 mark.
A lot of people see a rebound of a few dozen dollars and immediately think the panic is over and the big players are buying the dip. Then they rush in, all excited. But take a quick look at the trading volume underneath, and you’ll see just how serious the problem is.
When the sell-off drove the price down to 2405 last night, everyone rushed to cut their losses, and leveraged positions were forcibly closed. Turnover was indeed high—that was people dumping their holdings in a panic. But on the slow climb back from 2405 to 2500, volume shrank to a mere trickle. There was no large-scale, genuine buying coming in. The price wasn’t being driven up by powerful bulls buying in; rather, the sellers above had paused to catch their breath, and the price drifted upward on momentum, with little support behind it.
Between 2500 and 2530, there’s a dense cluster of stop-loss orders and positions waiting to break even overhead. They’re all hoping someone else will come along and lift them out.
If the big players really want to build a bottom here, they’ll have to put real money on the line and keep buying all the way up. If they’re unwilling to put real money in, then propping the price above 2500 on this meager trading volume is just putting up a pretty façade, luring small investors who are desperate to turn their fortunes around into holding the bag.
A price rise without genuine buyers stepping in can only hold for so long; the longer it lasts, the harder the collapse will be. Unless the bulls can bring in massive volume and break through 2540 in one go, if the market stalls at its current level, it could plunge another leg down at any moment to retest last night’s low.
Trade direction: Short
Entry range: 2510–2520 (Anyone blindly chasing a long position near the top of a low-volume rebound probably thinks their principal has been sitting around for too long.)
Hard stop: 2555 (If the price breaks above this level on heavy volume, admit you’re wrong and exit. Protecting your capital comes first—never hold on stubbornly.)
Take-profit range: Reduce position at 2450 / Close position at 2410
Strategy validity: If not filled within 8 hours of publication, the strategy expires automatically
There’s never a shortage of wishful thinkers in the market, but the books only recognize real money in the bank.