Ethereum Hits All-Time High in Contract Transaction Volume This Year, Overleveraged Speculation Causes Price to Underperform

BlockBeats News, December 27, according to CryptoQuant analyst Darkfost, this year's Ethereum contract transaction volume far exceeds previous years. Taking Binance as an example, in the past year, Ethereum futures trading volume has exceeded 6.74 trillion US dollars, almost twice that of 2024, which had already set a historical record. Therefore, it can be said that Ethereum is one of the largest assets in the 2025 global derivatives market in terms of trading volume, highlighting the strong speculative demand.

Over the past year, the ratio of spot to futures is about 0.2, which means that for every 1 dollar invested in ETH in the Binance spot market, nearly 5 dollars are invested in futures contracts. This ratio is a characteristic of a market highly dependent on leverage, reflecting extreme speculation on Ethereum in 2025. Record trading volume combined with such an unbalanced ratio indicates that futures largely determine Ethereum's price trends.

Therefore, Ethereum's price fluctuations this year have often been magnified, chaotic, and highly dependent on liquidation, ultimately resulting in it hitting a historic high with only a slight advantage of a few dollars.