Ethereum's contract trading volume this year has set a record, but excessive leveraged speculation has caused the coin's price to fall short of expectations.

On December 27, according to CryptoQuant analyst Darkfost, Ethereum’s contract trading volume this year far exceeded previous years’ levels. Taking CEX as an example, over the past year, Ethereum futures trading volume exceeded $6.74 trillion, almost twice that of 2024, which has already set a historical record. Therefore, it can be said that Ethereum is one of the assets with the largest trading volume in the global derivatives market in 2025, highlighting the strong speculative demand. Over the past year, the spot-to-futures ratio was about 0.2, meaning that for every $1 invested in ETH on the CEX spot market, nearly $5 was invested in futures contracts. This ratio is characteristic of markets highly dependent on leverage, reflecting extreme speculation on Ethereum in 2025. The record-breaking trading volume combined with such an imbalance indicates that futures largely determine Ethereum’s price trend. As a result, Ethereum’s price volatility this year has often been amplified, disorderly, and highly reliant on liquidations, ultimately leading to a new all-time high with only a few dollars of marginal gains.