Ethereum is up 15% versus Bitcoin since Shapella — More ETH price gains ahead?
Ethereum's Ether (ETH) token has entered a sharp price recovery a week after hitting a six-month low versus Bitcoin (BTC).
On April 18, the widely-tracked ETH/BTC pair reached 0.0709 BTC, up about 15% from its local bottom of 0.0602 BTC six days ago. Now it eyes a run-up toward 0.075 BTC by June, based on the fractal setup previously discussed here.
Interestingly, Ether's local bottom formation versus Bitcoin occurred on the day of Ethereum's long-awaited Shapella upgrade.
The hard fork enables Ether stakers to withdraw their rewards — around 1.1 billion ETH — from Ethereum's proof-of-stake smart contract. This update may have boosted ETH's appeal compared to BTC, beating anticipations that a freshly unlocked Ether supply would increase sell-pressure.
Stakers have withdrawn 574,700 ETH — worth about $1.21 billion — since the Shapella upgrade on April 12, according to data fetched by Nansen. Interestingly, Ether's price in U.S. dollar terms has increased by 14.25% in the same period.
It means that many stakers have decided to hold onto their Ether rewards. On the other hand, Bitcoin has failed to log a decisive breakout above its technical resistance of $30,000, possibly making ETH a more attractive short-term bet for traders.
Institutional investors have shown more interest in Bitcoin than Ether in the past week, according to CoinShares' weekly report.
For instance, Bitcoin-based investment vehicles witnessed $103.8 million in inflows in the week ending April 14. In comparison, Ethereum funds attracted $300,000 only, showing that mainstream investors may have followed the "sell the news" strategy after the Shapella upgrade.
Ethereum price meanwhile is also at risk of a possible bearish reversal move due to its overbought daily
Read more on cointelegraph.com
