After tremendous price surges in decentralized finance coins and many smaller-cap crypto assets, attention is finally returning to Ethereum.
The second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization is in the midst of shooting higher to new all-time highs as the altcoin market froth starts to cool down. Ethereum currently trades for $1,500 as per CryptoSlate market data, which is a new all-time high by the standards of most.
Ethereum is struggling slightly at this key level, with sell orders coming in at that round number, as can be seen in the chart below.
The trend appears to be positive despite the resistance at $1,500.
Grayscale buys to boost Ethereum
Michael Sonnenshein, the chief executive of Grayscale, just announced that the firm’s Ethereum Trust just opened its doors to accredited investors to allocate capital at NAV for the first time in over a month.
Grayscale is a digital asset manager that allows accredited investors (most often Wall Street firms and family offices) to obtain exposure to bitcoin and Ethereum.
Grayscale holds over 2.8 million ether. The firm saw around 400,000 ether worth of inflows during the month of November, which is around the same amount of ETH that was mined in that period. Many investors think that the reopening of the Ethereum Trust will result in a spike in demand for the cryptocurrency, driving the asset higher.
It is unclear how much Grayscale will see in inflows until the firm files an update to the SEC later this week or next week.
Yes, you read that correctly, @Grayscale #Ethereum Trust is open for daily subscription at NAV by eligible accredited investors.https://t.co/YfK2YUKgCj pic.twitter.com/8XmZjX36XH
— Michael Sonnenshein (@Sonnenshein) February 1, 2021
Strong fundamental trends
Ethereum is seeing fundamental trends that will likely drive value to ETH in the long run.
As reported by this outlet previously, Spencer Noon, an investor at crypto-focused venture firm Variant and an on-chain analyst, has noted that Ethereum is seeing record levels of on-chain activity by many standards.
To name just a few metrics that are at all-time highs for the cryptocurrency, Ethereum transaction fees have surpassed that of Bitcoin due to DeFi, the amount of value transferred on the network has hit an all-time high, Ethereum has hit an all-time high of daily active addresses, and there is now over $25 billion locked in the DeFi space.
Raoul Pal, a macro investor and the founder of Real Vision, is adding to his Ethereum position as he sees more potential upside in the cryptocurrency than Bitcoin:
“For longer-term HODLers of BTC and ETH this is probably a good time to start accumulating more. Personally, Ive added more ETH and now time to add more speculative crypto. Have not pulled trigger yet as doing some homework on it. Good luck ! Ugly price = opportunity.”
Disclaimer: This author is an analyst at ParaFi Capital. ParaFi Capital may hold positions in assets mentioned in this article. The views displayed in this article are opinions of the author—and the author only.
Ethereum, currently ranked #2 by market cap, is up 13.27% over the past 24 hours. ETH has a market cap of $170.7B with a 24 hour volume of $40.76B.
