On Sunday Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization topped $2,350, its highest level since June 18.
Investors’ demand for Ethereum is being fueled by the price stability of bitcoin and the expectation of significant protocol improvements.
Despite Friday’s expiry of $230 million in Ether (ETH) options, investors seem to be cautiously optimistic about the upcoming London hard fork and the likelihood that Bitcoin (BTC) has found a bottom.
Update on the pricing of Ethereum
According to Cointelegraph Markets Pro, ETH gained more than 6.5 percent to $2,370 on Sunday, the highest level in over two weeks. Weekend trade volumes were slightly over $18 billion, which was typical of the weekend.
Ether has a total market capitalization of $274.8 billion at current prices.
On Sunday, the DeFi market, which is mainly based on Ethereum, witnessed a total rise of 9%. According to Coingecko statistics, the total market value of DeFi coins is $67.3 billion.
Meanwhile, Bitcoin’s price increased by 2.6 percent to $35,600.
Last month, the bulls and bears battled it out in the options market, with both sides anticipating huge price swings for Ether coming up to Friday’s options expiration.
According to Cointelegraph, the bulls begin to extend their advantage at the $2,200 price level, as indicated by the ratio of call options to put options.
On June 24, Ethereum’s London hard fork, which includes the much awaited EIP 1559, went live on the Ropsten testnet, paving the way for full mainnet deployment later in July.
Several proposed improvements, including the shift to the eco-friendly proof-of-stake consensus and a new “scarcity” feature that would limit the amount of tokens in circulation, are expected to have a beneficial effect on Ether’s value.
Analysts predict that as the hard fork approaches, investors will increase their exposure to ETH. According to on-chain statistics, this is already occurring, as Ethereum recorded over 750,000 active addresses last week, far outnumbering Bitcoin.
The active-address flipping was characterized as “historic” by Santiment, the analytics company that supplied the data.
On a day that saw history be made with #Ethereum surpassing #Bitcoin in daily active addresses for the first time, #altcoins came to play. $KSM, $COMP, and $ZIL were among many projects to make an imprint on the markets, while $BTC ranged around $34.5k. https://t.co/cwjGvrLLeX pic.twitter.com/3AFQ0MHbcT
— Santiment (@santimentfeed) June 29, 2021
