By
Svetlana Soroka
May 11th, 2024
Ethereum (ETH) has emerged as the top performer in the top ten crypto-list gaining over 14% and moving past $1,500 for the first time since the Merge event.
On Tuesday, October 25, the broader crypto market made a sharp rally surging past more than 5% and above the $1 trillion market cap. As of the press time, the broader cryptocurrency market is up 7% with a combined market cap of $995 billion.
The world’s largest cryptocurrency Bitcoin (BTC) has also gained 7% and is currently trading at $20,6000 just short of $400 billion. Historically, October has been the month of strong performance for BTC and the broader crypto space. However, the party started quite late this year with Bitcoin’s monthly gains at just over 7%.
The recent surge on Tuesday came as the US equity market continued to rally. Some market analysts believe that the Fed is showing signs of pivoting towards less aggressive interest rate hikes. Nick Hotz, vice president of research at digital-asset manager Arca, said:
“From a more macro markets standpoint there’s definitely a lot on the short side,” he said. “If people close those shorts, it could drive the price higher.”
However, as the U.S. inflation numbers continue to stay above 8%, some analysts believe that Fed won’t slow down anytime soon. The next immediate rate hike will happen in November next predicted to be 75 basis points. Some analysts say that the Fed will slow down after the interest rate peaks to 4.25-4.5%.
Ethereum and Other Altcoins Rally
Along with Bitcoin, the rally in the altcoin space is really phenomenal. The world’s second-largest cryptocurrency Ethereum (ETH) is up by more than 14% and is currently trading at $1,530. This is for the first time after the Merge event that the ETH price has shot past $1,500 levels.
Over the last few weeks, ETH was struggling under $1,300. On-chain data provider Santiment reports:
“An #Ethereum whale wallet that had not been active for 6+ years woke up today & moved $22.2M worth of $ETH to an empty wallet. $ETH’s price is +8.1% since this transaction, briefly jumping over $1,500 for the 1st time since the #merge 6 weeks ago.”
- Courtesy: Santiment
In addition to Ethereum, altcoins like Solana, Cardano and Dogecoin have all made gains in double-digit percentage points. Having gained nearly 9% in the last 24 hours, Polygon’s MATIC is just short of $1.0.
The sudden rally in the crypto space on Tuesday led to short liquidations to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.