$XRP Despite US President Donald Trump’s strong push for interest rate cuts, as expressed in his Truth Social post on April 7, Fed Chair Jerome Powell remains cautious about inflation trends. Powell reportedly stated on April 4: "It is too soon to say what will be the appropriate path for monetary policy," according to Yahoo Finance.

Adding further pressure to Ether’s price was Ethereum developers’ decision to delay the Pectra upgrade, originally scheduled for April. Developers have now set May 7 as the target date for its mainnet launch but provided no specific reason for the delay. This comes even though the Hoodi testnet upgrade was successfully implemented on March 26.

Ether derivatives display moderate resilience while Ethereum TVL jumps to an all-time high

Given the negative news flow, one might have expected Ether bears to dominate the market entirely. However, derivatives data suggests that bears are not as confident as anticipated. When traders foresee a correction, put (sell) options tend to trade at a premium, pushing the 25% delta skew metric above 6%. Conversely, during bullish periods, this indicator typically falls below -6%.

Currently, the ETH options skew stands at 10%, the same level as March 31, which remains within bearish territory. However, this reading is significantly less extreme compared to May 2024, when it peaked at 20% amid a sharp ETH price drop from $3,700 to $2,860 within five weeks. In essence, while Ether derivatives markets signal bearish sentiment, they do not reflect panic levels.

Onchain data for Ethereum shows resilience despite broader market challenges. The total value locked (TVL) on the Ethereum network reached an all-time high of 30.2 million ETH on April 6—a 22% increase compared to the previous month. This growth outpaced Solana’s 12% increase in SOL SOL $111.26 terms and Bina Chain’s 16% TVL rise during the same period.

Ultimately, macroeconomic conditions remain the primary driver of cryptocurrency demand. However, when analyzing Ether derivatives data and Ethereum’s TVL performance,