Ether Set to Reach New Highs as Bitcoin Capital Rotates

A streak of inflows into U.S.-listed spot ether (ETH) exchange-traded funds (ETFs), rising activity on the Ethereum blockchain and increased institutional trading interest could help the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap surpass its three-year-old price record in the coming months.

“ETH spot ETFs continue to record strong net inflows, totaling $90.1 million yesterday and marking a 4-day winning streak,” QCP Capital said in a note referring to Wednesday trading. “Despite this week’s retracement, these healthy inflows highlight the market’s growing optimism. ETH was the main outperformer Wednesday as it rallied 11.65% to a high of 3,688. This is aligned with our thesis of capital rotation from BTC to ETH.”

The ether ETFs attracted over $220 million in the Nov. 22-27 period, data shows, the second-longest streak of inflows since they went live in July. That has helped bring cumulative flows to a positive $240 million.

“Given that ETH has lagged behind BTC and SOL in the current rally, its recent strength supports the case for it to retest its all-time high of 4,868 (+35.4%),” QCP said.

Fundamental factors and money flows are further boosting ether’s growth prospects.

A CoinDesk analysis earlier this week noted that cumulative open interest in perpetual and standard futures contracts has surged to a record 6.32 million ETH, worth over $27 billion.

Activity in the ether options market listed on Deribit is also picking up, with over 2 million contracts active or open at press time, the most since late June.

Other data shows a jump in revenue, fees, new wallets and Ethereum blockchain volumes, with the past month registering elevated levels of activity compared with the period from May to September.

Stablecoin data further shows that Ethereum has more USDT hosted than Tron, with $60.3 billion on Ethereum versus $57.94 billion on Tron, the first time that’s happened since June 2022.