The decline of Ethereum is driven by a significant deterioration in short-term funding conditions. The most direct pressure comes from institutional channels: on January 20th, the US spot Ethereum ETF recorded a net outflow of up to $229.95 million, ending a previous five-day streak of net inflows. Among them, BlackRock and Fidelity's products experienced the largest outflows. Market chain reactions:

Mass liquidations: Price declines triggered forced liquidations of highly leveraged positions. In the past 24 hours, the total liquidation amount across the network reached $1.005 billion, with approximately $365 million related to Ethereum (long positions $245 million, short positions $120 million).
Derivatives cooling: Although trading volume increased, the total open interest decreased, indicating traders are closing positions rather than opening new leveraged positions, and market risk appetite is shrinking in the short term.
Short-term impact: The sharp reversal in ETF capital flows directly weakened spot buying power and amplified the decline through a liquidation cascade in the derivatives market, forming a typical "capital outflow - price decline - leverage liquidation" negative cycle.