Speculative interest in ETH surpasses BTC – can it drive prices up?
Key Points
Fidelity views ETH as a store of value, similar to currencies in emerging economies. ETH's trading volume and speculative interest once surpassed BTC.
Ethereum [ETH] has garnered significant attention from Wall Street, with asset management company Fidelity now viewing ETH as an alternative store of value (SoV) and wealth preservation.
The asset management company stated in its latest report,
'Ether can be used to pay for any transaction on the Ethereum blockchain, regardless of the type of transaction... Ether can serve as a medium of exchange and a store of value.'
Fidelity added that the blockchain has embedded currency (ETH of the Ethereum network), and should therefore be compared with sovereign nations and their economies, rather than Web 2 companies.
The company also emphasized that ETH is the most actively traded asset on exchanges and is a 'major lending asset.'
Market Reaction
The above update is seen as a reassurance and trust in ETH. In 2024, ETH experienced a significant market decoupling and divergence from BTC.
At that time, the altcoin faced immense pressure for not having the value storage function like BTC, having fallen nearly 70% against BTC, even lagging behind Solana [SOL].
Thus, Fidelity's report was well received, especially among members supporting ETH.
In response to the report, Ethereum educator Sassal described it as 'bullish' and pointed out that ETH is undervalued.
'ETH is a $1 trillion asset, currently trading at $316 billion.'
Recently, in the context of expected stablecoin prosperity and on-chain capital markets (on-chain stocks), analysts have made bullish predictions for ETH.
After the update from Fidelity, ETH sentiment rose to 'greed' levels, increasing by 2.8% to $26,000.
Overall, according to data from CoinGlass, the growing positive sentiment has led ETH to surpass BTC in terms of daily trading volume and speculative interest.
It is worth noting that as of the time of writing, the open interest (OI) rate for ETH has risen by 7%, while the open interest rate for BTC has decreased by 0.18%. This highlights the tremendous demand for ETH in the futures market.
At the same time, derivative trading volume soared to $59 billion, about $3 billion more than BTC. If this trend continues, ETH may surpass BTC in terms of investor returns in the short term.
That is to say, the market sentiment at the end of the third quarter (Q3) is bullish, with a put/call ratio of 0.44, highlighting that call options (bullish bets) outnumber put options (bearish bets).
Most bullish targets are $28,000 and $32,000, with the maximum pain price (potential bottom price, where options contracts expire worthless) around $20,000.
Overall, ETH may still remain below $3,000 in the third quarter, but options traders are still betting on a potential breakout.
