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Our topic Today is Ethereum’s Delayed Bull Run.
Things haven’t been good for Ether. YES, the price did break above $4,000 last month. The blockchain also rolled out its big update – Dencun. At the start of the year, they also published their roadmap for the future ahead. The entire industry has been talking about the bull run, how every crypto is going up including Bitcoin, Solana,and some meme coins. But how could we be talking about a bull run, the surge of the market when the largest altcoin is yet to retest its 2021 highs?
Bitcoin broke above all-time highs recently, Ethereum which has historically traded in sync with the biggest cryptocurrency seems to be out of pace this year.
We are not saying Ethereum is underperforming or its newest upgrade was ineffective. In fact, previous upgrades for the altcoin have always been followed by a downward correction in the price of ETH. When the Merge happened in 2022, the cryptocurrency’s price retraced by 25%. Same with the Glacier Grey upgrade in June 2020 where Ether’s price fell to $1043 from $1275. We are also not saying the other top altcoins have revisited the previous bull market’s highs. For example, Solana (SOL) has surged by 840% in the last 1-year and is currently trading at strong highs around $200. However, altcoin has also not yet retested its 2021 high of $260.
Ethereum’s Price over the Last One Year
The biggest concern for Ethereum is its price has always synced with Bitcoin. In the current bull market, the altcoin seems to be lagging despite recording significant development and economic activity. A spec of light does exist once the network executes the purge, whose details the founder of Ethereum Vitallik Buterin revealed on 2nd April. However, most of the cryptocurrency’s price depends on the approval of its exchange-traded fund (ETF) by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
If the performance that Bitcoin has witnessed since the approval and launch of its ETF is anything to go by, an Ethereum ETF will definitely spur institutional demand for Ether and pump it to record levels.
Ether ETF Approval Decision
The SEC, however, has postponed its decision for the approval on multiple occasions. A decision was expected this March but the commission deferred its decision to 23rd May 2024. Meanwhile, experts are forecasting the price of Ethereum could double once the regulator greenlights the exchange-traded product.
But there are also chances that the SEC might rule out Ethereum as a security due to its proof-of-stake consensus mechanism which requires stakers to lock up their tokens and earn yields. As such, the decision to approve its ETF might take a different course from Bitcoin’s.
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Last month, two U.S. Senators wrote to the commission asking it to not approve any more altcoin exchange-traded products. Also, several analysts including Bloomberg’s senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas shared on X that the odds of an Ethereum ETF had reduced from 70% to 35%.
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