TL;DR Breakdown:
- Ether briefly touched a new high of $1,467 earlier today.
- This follows a massive outflow of ETH from exchanges last week.
The second-largest cryptocurrency, Ether (ETH), reached a new all-time high some hours ago, bringing excitement for ETH bulls this new week. According to Coinmarketcap, the cryptocurrency made $1,467 earlier today, while other trading platforms like Binance saw a higher record of $1,480. Following the new ATH, many ETH holders have set another target, expecting the crypto to cross $2,000 later this year.
Ether outflow from exchanges skyrocketed last week
The new high in ETH price followed a spike in the number of coins flowing out from cryptocurrency exchanges. Since this year, a large number of ETH has been flowing out from exchanges to decentralized finance protocols; the Ethereum 2.0 deposit contract, including self-custody wallets. ETH balance of exchange was dipping accordingly, which many analysts viewed to be a bullish trend for ETH price in the future.
Last week, about $5.4 billion worth of ETH was deposited on crypto exchanges. However, a larger number of ETH worth $6.8 billion were moved off from exchanges, according to Glassnode, an on-chain analytics platform. This resulted in a net flow of -$1.4 billion. In a separate tweet, Glassnode also informed that the ETH balance on crypto exchanges dropped to 15.4 million ETH, which represents a 15-month low.
ETH2.0 staking
While explaining the possible factors behind the drop, Quantum Economics’ Pedro Febrero opined that the decreasing Ether balance on exchange “means the price of ether has a greater chance of moving up. The less ether is available at exchanges, the more likely is the price to rise.”
ETH 2.0 staking seems to be the major factor behind the outflows, as more ETH were deposited on the contract last week. Currently, 2,828,066 ETH has been staked, which is worth about $4 billion, following the crypto’s price at $1,419.
