Ether (ETH) price has bounced 13% from its Jan. 9 low at $2,950, but it seems premature to call the move a cycle bottom. Instead, the larger bearish movement has prevailed and although it looks primarily correlated to Bitcoin (BTC) price, regulatory concerns and a tighter United States Federal Reserve policy have also been blamed for the movement.
BTC and Ether have been under pressure since regulators focused their attention on stablecoins. On Nov. 1, the U.S. Treasury Department urged Congress to ensure that stablecoin issuers are regulated similarly to U.S. banks.
Currently, the descending channel formation initiated in mid-November shows resistance at $3,850 resistance. The average network transaction fees have also risen back above $50 and the longer that the Ethereum 2.0 upgrade takes to occur, the better the situation will be for competing chains.
Regardless of the rationale behind Ether’s 28% price drop over the past six weeks, bulls missed the opportunity to secure a $300 million profit in the Jan. 14 weekly options expiry. Unfortunately for them, this $4,500 and higher scenario seems unfeasible at the moment.
The call-to-put ratio shows an 89% advantage for bulls because the $380 million call (buy) instruments have a larger open interest versus the $200 million put (sell) options. The current 1.89 measure is deceptive because the recent Ether price drop caused most of the bullish bets to become worthless.
For example, if Ether's price remains below $3,300 at 8:00 am UTC on Jan. 14, only $24 million worth of these call (buy) options will be available, but there is no value in having the right to buy Ether at $3,300 if it is trading below that price.
Related: Cointelegraph Consulting - A look at Terra’s ecosystem
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