Ether Price Hits 2-Year High

Ether (ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency by market value, jumped to two-year highs on Tuesday, taking its year-to-date gains to 260%.

The native cryptocurrency of the Ethereum blockchain, ETH was trading at $470 at press time – a level last seen in July 2018.
Prices are up more than 100% this quarter alone, according to CoinDesk's ether price index.
As ether rose by 10% in the past 24 hours, bitcoin added 3% and is currently trading near $11,940.
Other prominent coins from the CoinDesk 20 including XRP, Stellar XLM, litecoin, bitcoin cash and Chainlink's link token have all rallied by 2%-5% in the past 24 hours.

"Ethereum's price increase shows it is one of the main altcoins leading the market," Simon Peters, an analyst at multi-asset investment platform eToro, told CoinDesk in an email.
Investors may be entering the crypto market via ether and decentralized finance protocols rather than bitcoin, which served as a gateway to crypto markets during the 2017 bull run, Peters said.
On-chain metrics suggest ether's price rally has legs.
To start with, exchange deposits – the number of coins held in exchange addresses – declined to 17.99 million ETH on Monday, the lowest level since March 11, according to data source Glassnode.

Exchange balances have also reduced by over 5% in the past four weeks.
"Investors are holding onto ether as a value holder during times when inflation is on the rise," Glassnode tweeted.
Investors typically move coins off exchanges to their own wallets when they expect prices to rally.
Additionally, the recent price gains look to have been fueled by strong hands.
"The top 100 non-exchange addresses have increased bags by +8.2% in just 35 days – a bullish sign," blockchain analytics firm Santiment tweeted Monday.
The options market, too, is biased bullish on ether with the one-, three- and six-month put-call skews hovering below zero, according to data provided by the crypto derivatives research firm Skew.
That's a sign of call options, or bullish bets, drawing higher prices than puts, or bearish bets.

Put-call skews have declined sharply today with ether's rise to fresh two-year highs above $450.
Markets now expect ether to face increased volatility over the next four weeks, with one-month implied volatility increasing from 77% to 91% early Tuesday.

Also read: First Mover: Ether Price Swings Make Bitcoin Look Tame as DeFi Speculation Spreads

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