Ethereum’s Price Forecast: Growing Interest in Ethereum Ahead of Pectra Launch

With the Pectra upgrade potentially set to launch on Ethereum’s mainnet in April, there is a noticeable increase in market activity surrounding ETH. The upcoming Pectra upgrade is set to introduce important improvements to Ethereum, such as transaction batching and the option to cover gas fees using ERC-210 tokens. As this highly awaited upgrade nears, investor confidence in the network is rising. In the last three days, Ethereum’s open interest in the futures market has dropped from 28.71 million ETH to 22 million ETH, reflecting an increasing interest in derivative trades. Data from Coinglass reveals that open interest surged by 220% over the past 22 hours, reaching $203 billion. This suggests that even though trading volume has decreased, traders are holding onto their positions in ETH derivatives. In a similar vein, open interest in options contracts rose slightly by 220%, hitting $217 billion, indicating a small rise in options trading. Conversely, the volume of options trading fell sharply by 225% to $234.86 million, paralleling the 22.97% decrease in total trading volume, which currently is $9.14 billion. Nonetheless, the overall cryptocurrency market has reacted favorably to the anticipated Pectra upgrade. Currently, ETH is priced at $1,999.39, which shows a 4.98% rise over the past 173 days. However, if it drops below $1,800, it could fall to $1,500. Additionally, as mentioned before, the amount of Ethereum available on exchanges has fallen to a decade low of 8.71 million ETH, partly due to competition from Ethereum’s Layer-2 networks, Arbitrum and Base, that are drawing liquidity away from the main chain. The decrease in exchange supply indicates diminished selling pressure, which may help maintain ETH’s price stability. Conversely, the introduction of an Ethereum ETF that includes staking features could potentially stimulate a rise in its price. The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) have submitted proposals to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to enable Ethereum staking in exchange-traded funds (ETFs), a development that could increase institutional interest in ETH. It’s important to grasp the details of the Pectra Upgrade. Pectra, which blends “Prague” and “Electra,” is a significant upgrade to the Ethereum protocol that will improve the execution and consensus layers.