Culper Research says it is shorting Ethereum and related assets. They claim the token's economi

Short Seller Culper Research Bets Against Ethereum, Calls Fusaka Upgrade a 'Tokenomics Disaster'

A prominent short-selling firm just fired a major shot across Ethereum's bow. Culper Research announced it's taking a short position on ETH and related securities like BMNR, and their thesis is pretty damning. They're arguing that the Fusaka upgrade back in December 2025 seriously damaged Ethereum's tokenomics.

Here's the numbers they're throwing around. Fusaka bumped the gas limit up to 45–60 million. The expectation was gas fees would drop by 10–30%. What actually happened? They collapsed by roughly 90%. Culper says Vitalik and the validators were running their demand projections on models that are totally outdated—off by a factor of 3 to 9 times.

The firm also took aim at Tom Lee's bullish take. Lee's been pointing to rising active addresses and transaction volume as proof that ETH fundamentals are strong and institutions are piling in. Culper's response? Look closer. According to their analysis of on-chain data from January 2025 through February 2026, all that "growth" is actually just a flood of low-value trash transactions—address poisoning and dusting attacks. Since Fusaka, 95% of new wallets created are dust attack wallets. Poisoning attacks are up more than 300%, accounting for over half of ETH's transaction growth. Right now, they make up 22.5% of all ETH transactions.

And here's the kicker: Culper claims Vitalik knows exactly what's going on and is quietly selling. Their conclusion? ETH's got further to fall.