Open interest in Ethereum surged to nearly $60 billion Tuesday, with traders rushing to stake out positions on the cryptocurrency as it comes the closest it has in years to reaching a new all-time high price.
Ethereum last set an all time high of $4,878 back in November 2021. ETH currently sits at $4,289, up nearly 17% on the week.
Some $57.31 billion in derivatives positions are currently open and pending on ETH’s future price, according to data from CoinGlass. Open interest in Ethereum futures contracts is now within range of the all-time high of $58 billion it set on July 28.
To give some sense of the significance of that figure: it represents nearly twice the value of open ETH future positions just weeks ago, in late June.
It’s also in uncommonly close striking distance of the current open interest in Bitcoin. At writing, traders have wagered $79.49 billion on the future price of BTC, the world’s top cryptocurrency.
Binance is the top single source of ETH futures volume, with $12 billion of open interest in the token coming from the world’s top crypto exchange. CME is next closest, with over $7.6 billion in open ETH positions coming from the American derivatives giant.
Recent liquidations data further shows that ETH is the market’s current flavor of the moment.
In the last 24 hours, over $127 million worth of ETH positions have been liquidated—the majority of which were long positions. In the same period, only $70 million worth of Bitcoin positions came due.
Much of the current excitement around ETH can be attributed to the token’s recent spike after months of lagging behind other top market players. This week has seen the cryptocurrency surge to highs not seen since the frenzied bull market of late 2021—and the momentum hasn’t let up yet.
There’s still a 12% price gap ETH needs to close to reach a new all-time high. But analysts told Decrypt Monday they are optimistic this week’s price gains are not a fluke—thanks to recent regulatory shifts conducive to Ethereum’s institutional adoption, and, perhaps more importantly, deflationary trends in consumption of the token via ETF inflows and corporate treasury buys.
