Ethereum dropped nearly 10% over the past week, wiping out all the gains it had accumulated in May and hitting an intraday low of $2,097 on Binance on Sunday, its lowest price since April 7. At the time of writing the asset was trading around $2,116, down nearly 3% over the past 24 hours alone. The pullback has frustrated bulls who had been pointing to improving sentiment around Ethereum in recent weeks, and it raises questions about whether the broader recovery narrative for the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap can hold up under the current macro environment.
The timing of the decline coincides with a period of significant pressure across risk assets more broadly, with geopolitical tensions continuing to weigh on market sentiment.

Ethereum remains down over 20% year to date despite the brief recovery earlier in May, and the latest leg lower has pushed it back into territory that many holders had hoped was behind them. Whether this represents a temporary setback within a longer recovery or the beginning of a more sustained pullback is the central question facing ETH investors right now, and the answer may depend less on crypto-specific factors than on conditions playing out in energy markets and global geopolitics far removed from the Ethereum ecosystem itself.