The never-ending battle of Ethereum against the psychologically-important $3K barrier continues. The DeFi king broke through the resistance earlier, meaning it is now up 16% on the week.
Ethereum 7-day returns, data via CoinMarketCap
Order Volume
The $3K area has been a tug-of-war over the last while, and today reads no different. Data below via IntoTheBlock shows the boisterous volume on both sides of $3K, as order-books burst with bids and asks. It’s difficult to ascertain where ETH will go from here; like most financial assets, it may depend on external geopolitical developments, which have been plentiful in recent times.
Order volume around the $3K barrier, data via IntoTheBlock
Volume
Volume provides no clue in either direction, with withdrawals from exchanges continuing to follow a slow but steady decline. This suggest hodlers are staying put, despite the volatility Russia has caused across the market this month. Looking at the 30-day movement, we are seeing 3% less transactions now than we were last month – not exactly a figure that will shock anyone, but an important indicator that long term holders have remained resolute.
Outflow transactions over last 6 months, data via IntoTheBlock
Bitcoin Correlation
ETH has notably outperformed Bitcoin the last week, with the world’s biggest crypto only up half of what ETH has managed over the last 7 days, at 8%. Looking at correlations, ETH has been slowly dropping over the last month, but nothing too notable – and correlation to Daddy Bitcoin remains extremely high at 0.88.
So while a decoupling has long been forecast by ETH enthusiasts, that day has not yet arrived. With ETH’s market cap at $360 billion while Bitcoin remains clear at $807 billion, talks of the “Flippening” have also died down. However, with the eagerly awaited ETH 2.0 upgrades inching closer – I suspect this summer may be the fateful day – expect talk of both a Decoupling and the Flippening to resume. It will be very interesting to keep tabs on the correlation between the two biggest cryptos once ETH transitions to Proof-of-Stake.
Data via IntoTheBlock
Macro
With on-chain metrics looking good but unspectacular, it looks like we need to search elsewhere for the catalyst behind this surge in ETH. I could sit here and data-mine; I could try to infer it’s because of this metric or that metric, but the reality is that on-chain metrics are incredibly useful when used in conjunction with a holistic view of the…