Ether has flipped Bitcoin in one important metric, which may set trend for future
Ahead of the fundamental merge update, Ethereum trading activity flourished with open interest options fast progress Bitcoin for the first time in history, which technically became the first flipping of Bitcoin by Ether, not in terms of market dominance.
Ethereum options open interest have reached $8.2 billion, while Bitcoin’s options open interest is somewhere around $5.4 billion. Such a large gap between two assets is also tied to the fact that Bitcoin has not shown as much volatility as the second biggest cryptocurrency on the market, nor had any big news targeted at it.
We will most likely see a continuation of this trend as the merge update is drawing closer with each passing day, and trading volume on derivatives related to Ethereum or even Ethereum Classic is going to increase as users use one of the The latter are betting on the outcome. The biggest update in the history of the industry has been implemented.
In addition to the dropping volume on Bitcoin options, Ethereum futures open interest is another factor that we should consider when looking at the derivatives market. While options are a widely used instrument, retail traders and investors prefer futures to receive exposure to cryptocurrencies rather than spot assets.
The seven-day moving average of trading volume in BTC futures has hit its lowest level since December 2020, indicating that traders are either uninterested or unsure in which direction the first cryptocurrency will head.
At press time, Ethereum is mostly mimicking the price performance of Bitcoin, but with the greater volatility. The price of the second biggest cryptocurrency ahead of the Merge is staying around the $1,890 price level, while Bitcoin is struggling at $23,850.
