has been undergoing a significant transformation over the past few weeks. Although the price performance of ETH has been sluggish, institutions have been quietly entering the Ethereum market. Big money is clearly looking ahead while retail traders continue to hesitate.
Ethereum ETF inflows have topped $70 million, while ETFs have recorded net outflows in the same period. There has also been an increase in on-chain metrics for updates. Also, Ethereum price is up 10% in the last week, but its technical indicators remain weak.
Ethereum Continues to Outperform in Institutional Flows
Institutional investors are making a bold statement. While spot Bitcoin ETFs faced a rough patch with $84.86 million in net outflows on July 8, according to SosoValue data. Ethereum funds did the exact opposite. 
Spot Ethereum ETFs recorded a solid $70.48 million in net inflows on the exact same day. This impressive move extended their positive streak to five consecutive trading days. It shows a stark contrast in institutional sentiment.
Meanwhile, Wall Street appears to be favouring Ethereum over Bitcoin. This steady accumulation suggests that big money is looking past recent market corrections. They are focusing heavily on Ethereum’s expanding role in tokenization and decentralized finance infrastructure.
Buying Pressure Remains Weak
While there has been a major uptick in institutional ETH purchases, retail and whale purchases have remained mute. For example, whales (10K-100K ETH balances) saw inflows of roughly 100K ETH over the past week.
However, over the last 3 weeks, the ETH balances of whales have remained largely unchanged. Over the same period retail wallets holding 100-1K and 1K-10K ETH have seen negligible changes in their balances.
On-chain analytics also shows that buying momentum has been noticeably weak. On-chain metrics like the Net Unrealized Profit/Loss (NUPL) show a slight improvement from -0.46 to -0.30, per CryptoQuant data. But that has left most investors with underwater assets.
ETH Remains Resilient Amid Middle East Tensions
What makes this market dynamic fascinating is Ethereum’s sudden grit. Although tensions between the United States and Iran escalated yet again Ethereum price has remained resilient. News like this used to result in a very dramatic, immediate decrease in Ethereum price.
Ethereum price still holds above the $1,750 level. This resilience shows that panic selling is gradually being exhausted. Most weak hands likely exited during previous market corrections. Adding to this steady confidence, corporate players are jumping in directly.
ETH Indicators Paint a Mixed Picture
Looking at the Ethereum technical charts on Investing.com, the outlook is a classic mixed bag. The moving averages are all giving a sell signal such as MA50, MA100 and MA200. This is because there is strong resistance at the $1,800 level and at the 50-day EMA at $1,804 which makes it difficult for the price of Ethereum to move higher.
Technical indicators are saying something else. RSI (14) and STOCH (9, 6) indicate that ETH price looks bullish. To confirm a bullish retest, however, the buyers need to move the price above the $1,800-$1,850 resistance level. If it happens, we could see Ethereum price at $2,000.