Ethereum price hits a $1,500 all-time high as ETH options and DeFi heat up

Growth in DeFi, increasing on-chain activity and the strength of the bullish Ethereum options market helped send Ether price to a new all-time high at $1,500.

The price of Ether (ETH), the native cryptocurrency of the Ethereum blockchain network, achieved a new all-time high at $1,500 today. Data suggest that the ETH options market showed dominant call activity and this may be a primary factor in the rally to a new high.

Across major exchanges, the price of ETH surpassed $1,500, after the options market showed dominant call activity.

In the options market, there are two types of contracts: puts and calls. Puts are sell orders and calls are buy orders. When there are more calls in the market, it means the options market is bullish.

The options market was dominated with calls before the rally

Before the rally to a new all-time high, analysts at Laevitas, a data analytics platform, said 80% of Deribit’s ETH volume has been dominated by calls.

Based on this volume trend, the analysts predicted that ETH is likely to see a major rally. They said:

“#ETH 1-month VIX has reset to levels last seen in early January while price is stabilising close to ATH. 80% of @DeribitExchange volume today is dominated by calls, this looks like it’s about to pop.”

Within hours, ETH surged past $1,500, recording a new all-time high for the second time in a month.

ETH had been flirting with the all-time high throughout the past week but each time it got close to the resistance the price rejected to the closest underlying support.

The fact that the price didn’t see a deep pullback after retesting the previous record-high meant the resistance was weakening. Hence, on its fourth retest, the resistance level was breached.

As Three Arrows Capital CEO Su Zhu said, the momentum of Ether has been so strong that if an investor sold BTC to ETH at the $41,000 peak, the investor would have made more than selling to the U.S. dollar. He said:

“Crazy thought, but you would’ve made more selling $BTC to $ETH than btc to usd at the local 41k top. Crypto/crypto if you want to play cycles. Crypto/fiat up only.”

So what’s next for Ethereum?

Traders say that if the Ether daily candle closes above $1,440, it would solidify a bullish uptrend. A pseudonymous trader known as “Trader Koz” said:

“Daily close above $1,440 confirms the low being in, in my opinion. Still time for this to get rejected so I’m trying to hold off on the full-blown celebration until later.”

Researchers at IntoTheBlock shared a similar sentiment. After Ether broke $1,500 for the first time in history, the researchers said on-chain activity has returned to Jan 2018 numbers.

“ETH breaks the $1,500 barrier for the first time and enters into price discovery. And to celebrate the ATH, here are some facts: – 100% addresses profitability – On-chain transactional activity back to Jan 2018 numbers (averaging 1.16m daily) – 52.38m addresses holding ETH (ATH)”