I would imagine the large numbers of new people to crypto who are involved with Ethereum has more to do with pre-christmas price drops.
Most of the cash purchases for ETH have dwindled in the run into Christmas - because these people have switched their spending to Xmas priorities (gifts and family expenditures).
This tends to effect most crypto's big in the Western spheres and Eastern spheres.
After Xmas ETH price will pick up again
Then, there is POS implementation at end of Feb or beginning of March.
It should be remembered: Proof-Of-Work System does need to raise a lot of fresh cash from new purchases.
When Ethereum goes to Proof-Of-Stake, it will no longer need to raise lots of fresh cash from purchases.
Most of the cash purchases for ETH have dwindled in the run into Christmas - because these people have switched their spending to Xmas priorities (gifts and family expenditures).
This tends to effect most crypto's big in the Western spheres and Eastern spheres.
After Xmas ETH price will pick up again
Then, there is POS implementation at end of Feb or beginning of March.
It should be remembered: Proof-Of-Work System does need to raise a lot of fresh cash from new purchases.
When Ethereum goes to Proof-Of-Stake, it will no longer need to raise lots of fresh cash from purchases.
This correction should be used to make some profits.
And yes people do liquidate some of their investments during Christmas and New Year.
A lot of people get given money as gifts and bonuses from employers around the Xmas and new year festivities also....
Some of them may choose to invest it in crypto whether there is a price drop or not...
Don't count on much price drops as existing holders will simply hodl rather than dump for cheap if there's no money on exchanges etc