Frightening advance warning? Ether options are overtaking Bitcoin as the best crypto to trade
Ether options have been trading for a much shorter time compared to Bitcoin options, but the former has done an impressive job of catching up to its predecessor. Bitcoin had dominated as the leading crypto-alternative asset in the space, with billions pouring into it. However, the tide had begun to turn in Q3 2022 when an important update on the Ethereum merger triggered a surge in interest in Ether options.
Ether Alternatives Outpace Bitcoin
Ether options debuted in the market back in January 2020 and it has seen steady growth since then. However much Ether options had grown, bitcoin options remained higher with open interest in crypto pouring into the pioneer cryptocurrency. Then in July 2022, Ethereum developers made an announcement regarding the network’s upgrade to a proof-of-stake mechanism, and this would completely change the game.
By July, interest in Ether alternatives had increased, leading to a meteoric rise. It had hit a new all-time high of $8.1 billion, which was more than 50% higher than bitcoin at the time, with an open interest of $5.4 billion. From then until today, Ether options remain on an impressive uptrend, continuing to outperform bitcoin at every turn.
Public miners sell more BTC than they produced | Source: Arcane Research
The increase puts Ether options behind with a 100% recovery compared to bitcoin, which continues to sit at 70%. It’s the first time ever that open interest in Ethereum has outgrown that of bitcoin, and it’s all thanks to the long-awaited Ethereum merger.
Is The Flipping imminent?
The “flip” is a word that has come to mean that Ether is surpassing bitcoin in value. For the most part, this thinking has emerged following the fact that the performance of the price of ETH has outperformed the price of BTC year after year. Therefore, some investors expect the digital asset to overturn bitcoin at some point to become more valuable.
There is no set timeline for when the turnaround is expected to happen. However, whenever Ether overtakes Bitcoin on any metric, the swirling debates begin. The same has been the case with the ETH alternatives which have grown larger than BTC.
ETH declines to low $1,800 | Source: ETHUSD on TradingView.com
Currently, the price of BTC is still more than 10 times that of ETH. So if there is to be a reversal, ETH will have to grow 1000% while the price of BTC remains unmoved. This is unlikely to happen, given that the market actually moves with the price of BTC.
However, as the merger approaches and what is referred to as a “triple halving” is imminent, ETH is likely to further close the gap between it and bitcoin. This event would see less supply of ETH in the market, giving it a genuinely deflationary model to compete with bitcoin’s limited supply.
Featured image from MARCA, charts from Arcane Research and TradingView.com
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