The price of Ether fell from over $3,000 to $2,100 due to selling pressure from a select group of market makers.

The five largest market makers have sold a total of 130,000 Ether (worth $290 million at today’s price) since August 3. During this period, the price of Ether fell from $3,000 to below $2,200.

Market makers include Wintermute, which sold over 47,000 Ether, followed by Jump Trading, which sold over 36,000 ETH, and Flow Traders, which came in third place with 3,620 ETH.

GSR Markets also sold 292 ETH, while Amber Group sold 65 ETH, according to a research note from 0xScope.

Jump Trading was the first market maker to start selling, but Wintermute sold significantly more Ether, as noted in 0xScope’s August 5 X post:

“Jump Trading began selling ETH ahead of other major market makers this weekend, despite low liquidity.”

Ether is currently struggling to stay above the psychological $2,200 level. More Ether sales from market makers and large investors could cause prices to drop further and cause panic selling among investors.

The price of Ether fell 22.3% in the 24 hours before 1:10 UTC and is trading at $2,233.

Ether’s price dropped to a daily low of $2,195 around 6:30 a.m. UTC but later recovered above the $2,200 level. On the positive side, the price of Ether could double from current lows if it follows the same patterns from two years ago, wrote pseudonymous crypto trader MarketWizard in an Aug.

“No matter how scary it looks right now, ETH is in the sweet spot. It’s retesting the 2-year base that made x2 at the beginning of this year.”

The sharp decline in Ether’s price comes despite the launch of the first spot Ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which began trading in the US on July 23.

However, inflows into Ether ETFs remain low despite the historic launch.

Since launch, US Ether ETFs have recorded total net outflows of more than $511 million, according to data from Farside Investors. Grayscale’s Ether ETF (ETHE) accounted for most of the outflows of more than $2.1 billion, while other ETF issuers recorded net positive inflows.

While Ether ETFs mark a significant regulatory development, ETH ETFs could be ‘sidekicks’ to Bitcoin ETFs in terms of inflows, Bloomberg senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas noted:

“Bitcoin is bitter enough. ‘You know what, that’s enough for me.’ “Those things go together anyway. It’s harder to explain Ethereum, but I just see it as a companion to Bitcoin.”