Key insights from Ethereum's performance in current bull cycle
|- Ethereum's price has followed a divergent pattern in the first 365 days after a Bitcoin halving event.
- Over 90% of ETH's supply has been in profit since January.
- Ethereum investors are slowly displaying confidence again with ETH ETFs on horizon.
Ethereum is up 0.3% on Friday as key insights from Glassnode reveal ETH's next potential move as the current bull cycle matures.
Daily digest market movers: How ETH has performed so far in current cycle
Despite earlier predictions that the agency would likely approve issuers' spot ETH ETF S-1 registration statements, the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) has remained silent. While the SEC remains mum, key on-chain data provide insight into key historical price moves in Ethereum and how they may affect the current cycle:
- Ethereum has followed a somewhat divergent market performance in the first year after a Bitcoin halving event, according to Glassnode. In 2016, ETH suffered a 45% drawdown before picking up the pace to rally about 3,400%. In the 2020 halving, ETH charged up by 150% before rising about 2,150%. Since the past halving in April, its price has remained relatively flat.
ETH Price Performance after Halving
- Ethereum has often experienced steeper drawdowns than Bitcoin during the early and later stages of previous bull cycles. In previous cycles, ETH saw corrections of above 65%. However, the largest drawdown in the current cycle is quite low compared to others, coming in at -42%.
- The total supply of ETH in profit crossed the 90% mark in January and remained relatively above it throughout H1. According to Glassnode, extended periods where 90% of a coin's supply is in profit often indicate the later stage of a bull cycle. This is characterized by profit-taking from investors, which in turn outweighs demand.
ETH Percent Supply in Profit
ETH's growth is evident in its 267% rise, adding $354 billion to its market capitalization since the FTX lows of November 2022.
ETH technical analysis: ETH investors are slowly gaining confidence again
Ethereum is trading around $3,135 on Friday, up by a mere 0.3% on the day. After posting a bearish exhaustion candle, ETH briefly declined to $3,060, sparking over $40 million in liquidations in the past 24 hours. Long and short liquidations accounted for 81% and 19% of total liquidations, respectively.
The move saw ETH's total liquidations flipping that of Bitcoin despite its relatively lower market cap. This could prime ETH to begin a fresh move toward the upside.
ETH options Open Interest (OI) declined to $5.16 billion on Monday, its lowest level in the past year. The move signified heightened uncertainty among traders as ETH's price retraced below $3,000.
However, following a slowdown in the bearish pressure and a slight rebound in ETH's price, ETH options OI has begun climbing up again, nearing the $6 billion mark on Friday. The price recovery and rising OI indicate traders are slowly gaining confidence in ETH again.
This is also evident in ETH's Long/Short Ratio, which has risen to 1.04 in the past few hours.
With the potential launch of Ethereum ETFs on the horizon and BTC seeing heavy selling pressure from miners, the German Government, and Mt. Gox repayment, investors may reallocate capital into ETH. However, the SEC's delay to greenlight issuers ETH ETF S-1 drafts may hamper a good price increase.
As a result, ETH will likely follow a horizontal trend within the $2,852 to $3,300 range but slightly tilted toward the upside until the SEC moves on ETH ETFs.
ETH/USDT 8-hour chart
According to Coinglass data, ETH may drop to around $3,041 in the short term, where there is a liquidity wall of $35.57 million, before rebounding.
Ethereum FAQs
Ethereum is a decentralized open-source blockchain with smart contracts functionality. Serving as the basal network for the Ether (ETH) cryptocurrency, it is the second largest crypto and largest altcoin by market capitalization. The Ethereum network is tailored for scalability, programmability, security, and decentralization, attributes that make it popular among developers.
Ethereum uses decentralized blockchain technology, where developers can build and deploy applications that are independent of the central authority. To make this easier, the network has a programming language in place, which helps users create self-executing smart contracts. A smart contract is basically a code that can be verified and allows inter-user transactions.
Staking is a process where investors grow their portfolios by locking their assets for a specified duration instead of selling them. It is used by most blockchains, especially the ones that employ Proof-of-Stake (PoS) mechanism, with users earning rewards as an incentive for committing their tokens. For most long-term cryptocurrency holders, staking is a strategy to make passive income from your assets, putting them to work in exchange for reward generation.
Ethereum transitioned from a Proof-of-Work (PoW) to a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) mechanism in an event christened “The Merge.” The transformation came as the network wanted to achieve more security, cut down on energy consumption by 99.95%, and execute new scaling solutions with a possible threshold of 100,000 transactions per second. With PoS, there are less entry barriers for miners considering the reduced energy demands.
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