Ethereum has seen more interest in recent days. Most of it comes from the drop in prices of the digital asset which allowed investors to enter at a much lower price. This interest is easily seen in the rise of open interest denominated in Ethereum. Over the past week, that has increased dramatically. Above all, he managed funds that were at the forefront of this increase.
Ethereum Open Interest Soars
For most of the past month, Ethereum open interest has seen a slow ascent. This trend would continue until the end of May, but the first half of June would paint a different picture. This is where ETH-denominated open interest improves.
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Open interest in Ethereum futures contracts rose rapidly from 2.4 million ETH to 3.3 million ETH just last weekend. It represented one of the biggest increases in open interest in the space of three days. It is speculated that this dramatic rise emerged from funds seeking to take advantage of the opportunity presented by the stETH and ETH peg. Most investors were actually looking for short ETH futures, which in turn would hedge exposure to stETH. A reasonable step.
However, the rise in open interest would not last. The end of the weekend saw a significant drop in Ethereum-denominated open interest which had risen previously. He lost around 400,000 ETH in the span of a day, which brought the open interest down to 2.9 million. Although lower.
ETH open interest surges | Source: Arcane Research
Short traders are expected to be the most active during this time given the performance of ETH funding rates. As open interest soared, funding rates fell below neutral and into negative territory. Primarily arising from all the hedging activities that were taking place.
ETH dominance remains low
Ethereum’s dominance in the crypto market has increased over the past two months. However, holding this would prove a much more difficult feat considering the decline that had been recorded since then. Bitcoin had started to rapidly nibble away at market share and that had seen that of altcoins like Ethereum plummet.
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ETH had started the year with a dominance high of 21.50%. But hasn’t been able to recover to that extent since then. It has since lost more than 6% of its market dominance, leaving it at its current position of 14.95%.
ETH dominance drops below 15% | Source: Market Cap ETH Dominance from TradingView.com
This matches the price’s recorded decline, losing over 40% of its value this week alone. However, it continues to maintain its lead as the second largest cryptocurrency in the space.
ETH is trading at $1,095 at the time of this writing, with a total market capitalization of $132.7 billion.
Featured image from Financial Times, charts from Arcane Reseach and TradingView.com
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