Ethereum, the most popular blockchain for hosting smart contracts, saw its native crypto Ether (ETH) record new all-time high of $1,565, reflecting a gain of 11% in the last 24 hours.
Interestingly, in the crypto derivatives market, a lot new ETH call options were opened, implying that traders are expecting the cryptocurrency to rally higher in the days ahead.
While a put option is an equivalent of sell order and call option is an equivalent of buy order, an increase in the number of call option contracts indicates that traders have a bullish view of an asset.
Before Ethereum breached previous high, analysts at Laevitas, a data analysis platform, pointed out that 80% of Deribit’s ETH volume is composed of calls.
On the basis of changes in volume, Laevitas analysts forecast that ETH will rise further. They stated:
#ETH 1-month VIX has reset to levels last seen in early January while price is stabilising close to ATH.
80% of @DeribitExchange volume today is dominated by calls, this looks like it’s about to pop 🚀📈 pic.twitter.com/sHN5JnB2jZ— Laevitas (@laevitas1) February 2, 2021
In a matter of hours, Ether breached $1,500, representing a fresh all-time high.
During the course of last week, Ether came near all-time high several time, but retraced every time and put the next support level under test.
As the price did not retrace strongly after testing the earlier all-time peak implies that the selling pressure has decreased. Therefore, on the fourth-attempt, the resistance level was broken.
In this regard, Su Zhu, CEO of Three Arrows Capital, stated that Ether’s buying momentum is so high that even if a crypto investor had sold BTH to ETH at $41,000 level, the investor would have profited more than selling against the BTC/USD pair.
Crazy thought, but you would’ve made more selling $BTC to $ETH than btc to usd at the local 41k top.
Crypto/crypto if you want to play cycles.
Crypto/fiat up only.
— Su Zhu (@zhusu) February 2, 2021
Traders state that if the daily candle in Ether price chart closes over $1,440, it would re-affirm the bullish uptrend. A trader with nickname “Trader Koz” opined:
Daily close above $1,440 confirms the low being in, in my opinion.
Still time for this to get rejected so I’m trying to hold off on the full-blown celebration until later.
— TraderKoz (@TraderKoz) February 2, 2021
Academics at IntoTheBlock echoed a similar view. After Ether went past $1,500 for the first time, academics stated that on-chain activity has increased to January 2018 level.
$ETH breaks the $1500 barrier for the first time and enters into price discovery.
And to celebrate the ATH, here are some facts:
– 100% addresses profitability
– On-chain transactional activity back to Jan 2018 numbers (averaging 1.16m daily)
– 52.38m addresses holding ETH (ATH) pic.twitter.com/wBahuL8UIk— IntoTheBlock (@intotheblock) February 2, 2021
