New York, June 17, 2024 – Ether (ETH) is showing resilience, supported by layer-2 network growth and inflows to spot ETH ETFs, despite failing to maintain its bullish momentum. The market is influenced by geopolitical tensions and trade disputes.
After peaking at $2,880 on Wednesday, ETH found support near $2,450. Derivatives metrics indicate growing confidence among traders, despite the price fluctuations. On Friday, the Ether futures premium briefly turned bearish as ETH price plunged 15% to $2,440, wiping out $277 million in leveraged long positions over two days. By Sunday, the futures premium had recovered, suggesting renewed confidence in the $2,400 support level (Source: Cointelegraph, June 17, 2024).
The surge in Ethereum layer-2 scaling solutions likely contributed to Ether's rally in early May. Combined activity on Base, Arbitrum, Unichain, and Polygon has surpassed Ethereum's $65.5 billion in monthly DEX volume. Shopify launched a limited rollout of USDC stablecoin payments on the Base blockchain on June 12, with a 1% cashback incentive, expected to fully launch by the end of 2025 (Source: Cointelegraph, June 17, 2024).
ETH options markets reveal further insights into professional trader sentiment. Currently, ETH put options are trading at a 4% discount compared to equivalent call options, remaining within a neutral range. This suggests that, despite ETH failing to maintain the $2,500 level, whales and market makers haven't turned bearish. This optimism may stem from the $830 million in net inflows to Ether US-listed spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) (Source: Cointelegraph, June 17, 2024).
Declining ETH balances on exchanges are generally viewed as bullish. As of June 17, the total Ether balance on exchanges dropped to 16.31 million ETH, down from 16.71 million a month earlier. Ethereum's total value locked (TVL) rose 6% over the same period to $67.2 billion, according to DefiLlama (Source: Cointelegraph, June 17, 2024).
While traders are not expecting ETH to revisit $3,000 in the near term, the strength of derivatives markets suggests that the $2,400 support level may continue to hold (Source: Cointelegraph, June 17, 2024).