Although the bitcoin price has been trading sideways with a slight recovery and little volatility over the past week, Glassnode’s new report shows that there is quite a bit of investor interest in trading BTC futures markets and hodling their ETH bags.
According to Glassnode, there is little directional bias in the Bitcoin derivatives market, suggesting that investors are trading cautiously despite the small upward price movement.
However, as for Ethereum (ETH), investors are being more optimistic, as withdrawals from exchanges “are relatively small” compared to the increasing demand for the coin as the Merge date approaches.
Investors Regain Confidence After LUNA’s Collapse
According to Glassnode’s Future Open Interest (BTC) metric, it appears that investors are already willing to trade the derivatives market again, pushing aside the wariness built around the crypto market after the collapse of Terra’s LUNA and UST tokens (where billions of dollars were lost) and the mining capitulation in May and June.
“Futures trade volume appears to have stabilized in the post-LUNA collapse era. Trade volume experienced a structural decline over the 12-months since the May 2021 sell-off, but appears to be re-establishing a floor at around $33B/day.”
Source: Glassnode
In addition, over the last year and a half, a structural change occurred in the futures markets. Although leverage remains high, the underlying spread is much more stable and lower than in early 2021 when bitcoin was in the midst of a bull rally.
Source: Glassnode
Ethereum’s Open Interest Flips Bitcoin’s For The First Time in History
At the moment, and for the first time in history, the interest of investors in trading the Ethereum derivatives market is much higher than that of bitcoin, reaching $6.6 billion in ETH versus $4.8 billion in BTC.
Moreover, this indicator shows that ETH options Open Interest is on the verge of reaching its ATH mark registered in late November 2021, when the price of ETH reached $4,900.
Source: Glassnode
The Ethereum Merge has strongly influenced the demand for ETH and the increase in its price, as the vast majority of investors are putting bullish bets on prices ranging from $2,200 to $5,000. Once the Merge is completed, Ethereum should have successfully transitioned to Proof of Stake without affecting the information of the original Proof of Work chain because those two chains would become part of the same ecosystem —hence the name.
So, at this point, Ethereum fans can rejoice in saying that their beloved coin is more in demand than Bitcoin, at least in the derivatives market. The flippening though, will have to wait.
