Culper Shorts Ethereum, Says Buterin Selling Signals More Pain Ahead

Culper Research disclosed a brief place in ether and ETH-linked securities on Thursday, arguing that Ethereum’s post-upgrade economics have deteriorated sufficient to place sustained draw back strain on the token. The agency pointed instantly at Ethereum’s December 2025 Fusaka improve, and at Vitalik Buterin’s current gross sales, as proof that “ETH goes decrease.”

“NEW: We are quick Ether ETH, and ETH-linked securities, incl. BMNR,” Culper wrote on X. “We assume ETH tokenomics are impaired following the December 2025 Fusaka upgrade. Vitalik is aware of it and is promoting, whereas ETH’s most ardent bull, Tom Lee, is throwing good cash after dangerous.”

Why Culper Is Shorting Ethereum

Culper’s core declare is that Fusaka’s L1 scaling modifications altered Ethereum’s demand-fee dynamic extra dramatically than anticipated. The agency pointed to a gasoline restrict enhance “45 to 60M” that it mentioned was supposed to scale Ethereum’s base layer, alongside estimates that “Vitalik and PTG” believed charges would drop 10% to 30%. Culper contends the realized final result was much more extreme: “In actuality, gasoline charges fell ~90%,” it wrote, including that Ethereum’s management and validators “miscalculated L1 demand elasticity by 3-9x based mostly on outdated math (pre-EIP-1559 and pre-L2s).”

That price compression issues, Culper argues, as a result of it ripples into validator economics and staking incentives. “Further, the gas-limit enhance killed $ETH validators, who at the moment are seeing 40-50% decrease ideas per gasoline,” Culper wrote, claiming that decrease yields scale back demand for staking and “high-value exercise,” undermining the institutional adoption narrative. “The flywheel is now working in reverse.”

The thread frames Tom Lee and BMNR as a outstanding counterweight within the ETH bull camp, then makes an attempt to dismantle his post-upgrade read-through. Culper mentioned Lee has defended ether by claiming: “ETH is just not in a loss of life spiral as a result of utility goes up.” According to Culper, Lee cited spikes in energetic addresses and transaction counts after Fusaka as proof of “strengthening fundamentals” and institutional adoption.

Culper’s rebuttal is blunt and largely definitional: “By Lee’s personal logic, if ETH exercise does NOT mirror elevated utility and strengthening fundamentals, then $ETH can be in a loss of life spiral,” it wrote. “Our analysis says that is precisely what’s taking place.”

To clarify the exercise surge, Culper mentioned its evaluation of on-chain knowledge from January 2025 by February 2026 suggests a lot of the expansion was not natural utilization, however a wave of low-value handle poisoning and pockets dusting enabled by cheaper blockspace. “Post-Fusaka: 95% of development in new wallets is defined by newly-created ‘dusting’ wallets,” Culper wrote, including that poisoning assaults have “greater than 3x’ed,” that poisoning explains “>50% of $ETH transaction development,” and that it now constitutes “22.5% of all ETH transactions.”

Culper mentioned it validated the phenomenon firsthand, claiming it arrange two new wallets, transferred between them, and was focused by poisoning assaults “inside 5 minutes,” whereas asserting that poisoning losses are “already pacing >8x larger than pre-Fusaka.”

Vitalik Is Selling

The agency additionally tried to tie its tokenomics thesis to Buterin’s recent sales exercise, portraying it as knowledgeable promoting fairly than routine treasury administration.

“This is why, we expect, Vitalik is promoting ETH hand over fist. On January 30, Vitalik pre-announced he’d promote 16,384 ETH to fund the Foundation’s ‘austerity interval.’ Since then, he’s bought over 19,300 ETH and counting,” Culper wrote. “He is aware of what Tom Lee doesn’t: ETH tokenomics are damaged.”

Culper closed by broadening the bear case into a contest story, claiming ether is dropping share to Solana and to Ethereum’s personal L2s, and likening ETH’s present place to incumbents that led early eras earlier than being displaced.

At press time, ETH traded at $2,080.