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Ethereum price rose to a 40-day peak of $3,719 on Tuesday May 21, 2024, up 30% over the past week, bullish staking trends provide a glimpse into what to expect after the spot ETF approvals.
Ethereum Price Hits 65-day Peak, Overtakes $BTC as ETF Approval Looms.
According to Bloomberg analysts, there’s now a 75% chance that the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will approve $ETH spot ETF this week. Based on recent filings from digital asset management giants, including VanEck and BlackRock, the SEC is now in a race against time to deliver a verdict before the May 23/24 deadline.
Curiously, Ethereum price has been on a tear since Bloomberg Senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas broke news of the impending ETF approval broke on Monday, outperforming the Bitcoin in May 2024 by a considerable margin.
Ethereum price rose to a 65-day peak of $3,811 in the early hours of May 21, bringing it May 2024 gains to 36.54%. A closer look at the chart above shows how $ETH performance in the last 48 hours has seen it overtake Bitcoin in terms of monthly timeframe growth.
While $ETH price has surged 36.54% between May 1 and May 21, Bitcoin price has only increased by 25.1%. This underlines crypto investors’ current overwhelming preference to take Long positions on $ETH against $BTC ahead of the SEC’s impending approval verdict.
$ETH Staking Surges $90 Million on 3 Days
More so, there are growing speculations that $ETH ETFs will pull more demand than $BTC ETFs due to added passive income that could be generated by Ethereum’s Proof-of-Stake protocol.
Recent trends observed on the beacon chain suggests that investors are already making strategic moves to front-run the possible upside from inflow of funds into $ETH ETFs.
The chart below shows the real-time changes in the number of coins currently staked on the Ethereum 2.0 beacon chain smart contract.
Since the turn of the week, Ethereum investors have staked an additional 25,184 $ETH, according to official data from the beacon chains. This brings the total stake to 32,154,810 $ETH.
Valued at the current price, the newly-staked $ETH coins are worth approximately $95 million. This suggests that majority of holders are looking to hold out for more gains despite $ETH prices currently trending at 65-day peaks.
More so, with the added passive income from staking, some analysts predict that $BTC ETF holders may seek to switch to Ethereum ETFs upon approval.
If this scenario plays out, $ETH staking contracts may witness a prolonged trend of rising deposits in the days ahead. Since staking reduces the amount of $ETH available to be traded on exchanges, there’s a chance that bullish pressure on Ethereum’s price could intensify.
$ETH price forecast: $4k Breakout Imminent?
Ethereum price is currently trending above, $3745 mark at the time of writing on Tuesday. And the $95 million surge in Ethereum 2.0 staking deposits this week suggests that bull are angling for another leg-up above $4,000.
IntoTheBlock’s global in and out of the money data shows that the next major resistance lies at the $3,900 level.
As seen above, 1.83 million investors had acquire 642,430 $ETH at the average price of $3,905. Considering that they have been holding at a loss for over 2 months, there’s a chance that many of them could book some profit, and inadvertently slow down the rally.
But if $ETH bulls can overturn that resistance sell-wall, a parabolic breakout above $4,000 could be on the cards when the SEC confirms the approval verdict on Ethereum ETFs.