Ethereum Retail Hands Still In Disbelief, Keep Selling Into Strength

On-chain data shows the small Ethereum hands have sold into the latest price surge, a sign that retail traders don’t believe that the rally will last.

Ethereum Retail Supply Has Seen A Notable Decline Recently

According to data from on-chain analytics firm Santiment, the retail-sized Ethereum investors have been reducing their supply recently. The indicator of relevance here is the “Supply Distribution,” which tells us about the amount of the cryptocurrency that’s being held by a particular wallet cohort.

Addresses are divided into these groups based on the number of tokens that they are carrying in their balance. The 1 to 10 coins cohort, for example, includes all investors owning between 1 and 10 ETH. In the context of the current topic, the group of interest is the one pertaining to a range of 0 to 0.01 ETH. The upper limit of the range is a relatively small one, so it provides a representation of the retail hands present on the Ethereum network.

Below is a chart that shows the trend in the ETH Supply Distribution for the 0 to 0.01 coins group over the past year.

Looks like the value of the metric has plunged in recent days | Source: Santiment on X

As displayed in the graph, the small Ethereum holders participated in accumulation between April and December 2025. In this window, they collectively added 6,195 ETH to their holdings, representing a jump of 4.1%. Most of the buying came alongside an uptrend in the price, but retail traders still continued to accumulate even after the bearish shift in the last quarter of 2025.

This trend flipped in January, however, indicating that the lack of a bullish return started causing an exodus from the 0 to 0.01 cohort. For most of 2026, the selloff from retail investors has been a gradual one, but as is apparent from the chart, a sharp plunge in the cohort’s Supply Distribution has occurred alongside the recent price .