Ethereum (ETH) is having its moment, as prices move to a four-month high above $190. The recovery took the ETH gains in 2020 to date above those of Bitcoin (BTC).
Ethereum Prices Look at Rally Above $200 on Active Futures Market
ETH prices have promised a bigger rally, headed for $200, noted Skew research. Both spot and derivative markets show a pickup in activity in the past days, pushing Ethereum away from its lows. Even with the robust gains of BTC and its move above $9,000, ETH has not given up the fight and looks like starting an encouraging new trend.
Trading $190 at a four month high, +47% YtD vs BTC + 29% pic.twitter.com/wn9RLpCgfC
— skew (@skewdotcom) February 3, 2020
Ethereum raised doubts on whether the last few weeks of relatively flat trading was indeed marking the bottom before a new rally. In the past month, all attention was on Bitcoin, but ETH turned out more bullish than expected. The $190 range was taken in just one day of rapid appreciation, on expanding volumes.
On Monday, Ethereum stepped back a bit to $188.31, but the relatively high volumes and momentum may push up the price again. ETH trading is now even more active in comparison to the 2017 bull market, with activity constantly close or above $10 billion. In January, Ethereum trading activity market an all-time high at above $17 billion in 24 hours.
Inflows from Tether (USDT) are also growing in the past few days, from $1.45 billion over the weekend to $1.47 billion on Monday. The pickup in trading activity may signal recovery as ETH becomes one of the strongest gainers in the past month.
ETH Keeps Flowing into DAI Stablecoin, Decreasing Circulating Supply
The Ethereum rally follows long months of sliding, and the recovery remains relatively uncertain. There are a few factors, however, that push ETH prices up. The switch to multi-collateral DAI means once again more ETH is locked into Maker, as noted by TokenAnalyst.
1600 unique ethereum addresses have contributed $612k in this week's pool.
Both number of participants and amount of funds in the lottery have been increasing exponentially since the launch of the multi-collater Dai pool.
pic.twitter.com/x8RorZaieF
— TokenAnalyst (@thetokenanalyst) January 27, 2020
In the past months, more Ethereum was locked away for lending schemes, and there may also be some accumulation for staking. Active addresses remain just below 300,000, showing regular usage, but also some addresses used for holding onto the coins. ETH transactions have also slowed down a bit at around 580,000 per day. The ETH market price may also have recovered from pressures stemming from the Upbit hack may be abating.
ETH activity also reveals the effect of USDT based on the Ethereum network. The tokens minted exceed 2.29 billion and are among the most active type of stablecoin, boosting the ETH pairing. More than 52% of all ETH trading happens against USDT, explaining the decoupling from BTC prices. Ethereum, however, still trades at 0.02 BTC, far from its peak at 0.15 BTC in 2017. The most ambitious hope for ETH supporters is the coin would finally start to reclaim its positions against BTC.
What do you think about the ETH market price recovery? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!
Images via Shutterstock, Twitter @thetokenanalyst @skewdotcom