Celsius sends ETH worth $125 mln to exchanges – Why?

• Celsius has begun transferring its ETH holdings to exchanges.
• CEL’s future Open Interest has continued to plunge.

Bankrupt cryptocurrency lender Celsius Network [CEL] has transferred over $125 million worth of Ethereum [ETH] to major exchanges within the past week, data from Arkham Intelligence revealed. 

Information retrieved from the data provider showed that Celsius has sent  $95.5 million worth of its ETH holdings to Coinbase, while $29.73 million worth of ETH has been transferred to FalconX.

At press time, Celsius’ remaining ETH holdings sat at roughly 539,000 tokens, valued at approximately $1.38 billion.

In an earlier report, the troubled crypto lender announced that it initiated a process of recalling and rebalancing its assets, part of which was unstaking its ETH holdings.

According to Celsius, this was to meet its liabilities under the bankruptcy proceedings.

Following this announcement, some analysts opined that flooding the markets with large volumes of ETH coins would put downward pressure on its value.

However, the hype around the recently approved Bitcoin Spot ETF forestalled this, as the altcoin market saw a significant rally in the just concluded week.

According to data from CoinMarketCap, ETH’s value has climbed by 13% in the last seven days. 

CEL on a weekly chart

Amid the rally in the altcoin market experienced in the last week, CEL has managed to record a 4% price surge. At press time, the alt exchanged hands at $0.2069.

As Celsius intensifies restructuring efforts, the demand for CEL has plummeted significantly in the past few months. In the last month alone, CEL’s price declined by 24%. In the past year, its value has dropped by almost 70%. 

As many expect CEL’s price to keep declining, traders have increasingly closed their trade positions. 

Between the 29th of December 2023 and the 13th of January 2024, the token’s futures Open Interest decreased by 36%, according to data from Coinglass.

As a result of the price decline, mostly long positions have since been liquidated. 

Source: Coinglass

CEL’s price movements assessed on a weekly chart confirmed the presence of bearish sentiments that have caused traders to limit token accumulation. 

Source: CEL/USDT on TradingView

For example, its Chaikin Money Flow (CMF) was -0.04 at press time. A negative CMF value is a sign of market weakness, as it means that investors increasingly take out capital from the market, causing prices to plunge further. 

Likewise, the alt’s Relative Strength Index (RSI) rested below its center line at 46.89. This showed that selling activity outpaced token accumulation.