Ethereum had a bearish start to the day with prices falling below the 1,500 level in early trading. The pullback came after it touched a peak of around 1,625 in the previous session, losing more than 10% of its value in a single day and marking the steepest single day fall since 23 February.

At the time of writing, ETH is trading at around $1,452. The volatility during the previous session saw the world’s second most popular cryptocurrency trade between $1,452 and $1,541 in a single day, after what can be called a quiet week for the digital currency that saw moves worth all of 0.41% through the past seven days.

ETH seems to be following BTC lower, which fell below $50,000 even as the overall sentiment in global markets turned risk averse and caused investors to shun riskier instruments like equities and commodity currencies. The market cap of Ethereum now sits above $227 billion after having fallen to around $225 billion earlier.

A possible reason for the bearishness in ETH could be a decline in trading volume on DEXs since late last month, which has also driven transaction fees on the Ethereum network lower. Even as the number of DeFi transactions on the network fall, there has been an uptick in activity within the NFT sector, which could continue to keep Ethereum in favor even as new projects move to other blockchain networks like Binance Smart Chain and Polygon.