Ethereum CEX Balance Plunge: Over 31 Million ETH Withdrawn in February, Binance Balance at Lowest Level Since 2020

BlockBeats News, March 4th, according to CryptoQuant data, in February, over 31 million ETH flowed out from centralized exchanges, marking the largest single-month outflow since November last year. Among them, Binance saw an outflow of around 14.45 million ETH, accounting for nearly half of the total outflow; OKX saw an outflow of around 3.83 million ETH; Kraken saw an outflow of around 1.04 million ETH. The continued outflow has reduced the liquidity available for spot trading, causing a short-term liquidity decrease after the tokens were moved to private wallets or staking platforms. When market activity picks up, the shrinking exchange balances may exacerbate price volatility.

Cryptocurrency analyst Arab Chain stated that despite ETH's price hovering around $2000, derivative data shows a divergence between small retail buyers and large sellers. The market focus is on how the price will react once retail and whale buying and selling directions align.

CryptoQuant data also shows that the Ethereum reserve on the Binance platform has dropped to around 3.46 million ETH, the lowest level since 2020. In the previous cycle, the reserves peaked at over 5 million ETH and then entered a gradual decline channel.

Hyblock data shows differentiation among different trading scales. The cumulative volume delta of small orders ($0-1 million) is close to $95 million, indicating continued dominance of retail buy orders; while the CVD in the $1-10 million range is around -$162 million, and in the above $100,000 range is close to -$357 million at the same time period, suggesting that large participants tend to net sell.

The buy/sell ratio has recently slightly turned positive, briefly rising to 0.2 before falling back to 0.03, indicating a slight strengthening of the buy side but an overall lack of widespread consensus. The open interest in futures contracts has decreased from nearly $10 billion at the end of February to around $9.41 billion, indicating a reduction in leverage.

Analysis suggests that if retail investors continue to accumulate while selling pressure from large holders slows down, the balance of long and short forces may converge. At that time, against the backdrop of a shrinking supply on exchanges, once ETH stabilizes above $2000–2150, it may amplify the upward price momentum.