Ether (ETH) has gained 950% in 2021 and from the look of things, the altcoin has no intention of stopping. This can also be seen in the ultra-optimistic bets for October’s $1.25 billion options expiry. However, this phenomenon is not exclusive to Ether bulls.
The right to acquire Ether at a fixed price in the future does not come at a cheap price. On Sep. 4, the $5,000 call option for Oct. monthly expiry was trading at ETH 0.082 which is equivalent to $320. Unfortunately, for the bulls, these options are now worthless.
Gas fees on Ethereum transactions are still above $25 and this will continue to favor competitor blockchains with their own decentralized finance (DeFi) and nonfungible token (NFT) markets. Even with these high fees, the leading smart contract network still holds 80% or higher total value locked (TVL) and decentralized exchanges (DEX) volumes.
The bullish trend that initiated on Sep. 21 has been driving Ether price on a path to break its $4,380 all-time high in a couple of weeks.
Furthermore, Ether bulls will also be pleased to know that ETH 2.0’s Altair upgrade was successful, with 99% of the nodes upgraded. This is the first upgrade since the Beacon Chain went online in December 2020 and the main changes include support for lightweight nodes and increased penalties for validators being offline.
Bulls were too optimistic, but they’re still ahead
Based on the bullish expectations surrounding a Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund approval, it is now possible to understand why bulls placed 55% of their bets at $4,500 or higher. However, as the deadline for Oct. 29 expiry approaches, these call (buy) options quickly lost their value.
The October monthly expiry will be a strength test for bears because any price above $4,000 means a $205 million or higher profit for the bulls.
As the above data shows, bears placed $535 million in bets for Oct….
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