Account opens $1.7B worth of Ethereum (ETH) contracts in an hour

YEREVAN (CoinChapter.com) – A random entity purchased $1.7 billion worth of Ethereum futures contracts within an hour, according to data tracked by CryptoQuant.

The spike occurred on July 20, constituting the largest hourly market volume in the previous seven months, testifying to the boost in open interest, i.e., the number of unsettled derivative contracts.

ETH investors hopeful?

Ethereum token Ether (ETH) price rallied over 55% in the previous week, reaching over $1,600 for the first time in a month. That coincides with the weight between call and put positions skewing toward Ethereum bulls.

Meanwhile, according to the crypto data website Coinglass, the preferred strike targets for the contracts expiring at the end of July stood at $1,200 and $1,400, respectively.

Also read: Ethereum (ETH) Forms Bullish Continuation Setup, Can The Bulls Take Over?

Ethereum addresses in profit reached a month-high of 54%, according to another metrics platform Glassnode.

Meanwhile, the rally was most likely triggered by the upcoming Merge in September.

Ethereum Merge on the way

As CoinChapter reported earlier, Ethereum outperformed Bitcoin in the previous week, and the rally came in the wake of the ninth shadow fork before the Merge to proof-of-stake consensus.

The shadow fork was designed to test the updates made in the July 6 Sepolia hard fork. It will also focus on a boost feature dubbed “maximal extractable value” (MEV). It refers to the maximum value extracted from block production on top of the standard gas fees and the block reward.

Also read: Ethereum (ETH) pushes $1.5K as the Merge approaches – will the rally last?

The anticipated Merge has been postponed numerous times. For example, the team pinned August as the target timeframe in late May. However, according to internal emails, the new Merge date is Sep. 19, which could have spurred the open interest boost.

Experts bullish on the long-term

ETH price has increased significantly, despite grim broader market expectations. Additionally, experts at price comparison portal Finder gave a bullish long-term prediction. In detail, the company measures expert price forecasts using weekly and quarterly surveys.

Its latest quarterly survey, conducted in July, “asks a panel of 54 industry experts for their thoughts on how Ethereum will perform over the next decade,” Finder explained.

Our panel’s predictions for ETH going forward have considerably lowered since the start of 2022. Back in January our panel predicted on average that ETH would be worth $26,338 by 2030, which fell slightly in the April report ($23,372) and now sits at $14,412 in July.

read the latest survey.