Ethereum (ETH), the second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, saw a price drop of more than 3% in the last 24 hours. The reason is presumably a sell-off by a prominent whale. The whale deposited 25,000 ETH (worth approximately $47.24 million) on Binance, only to withdraw a significant amount of USDT soon after.
As a Lookonchain on-chain data provider reports, the whale has probably already sold a part of its ETH. According to the chain’s data, the whale withdrew 16 million in USDT. “The fall in the price of ETH (a few hours) was probably due to the sell-off of this whale,” the analysts note, further explaining that the whale still holds around 8,000 ETH ($14.7 million) unsold.
However, the ETH bulls continue to show strength. A look at the Ethereum 1 hour chart reveals that the price has formed a bullish flag. In technical analysis, a flag is a short-term consolidation pattern that occurs after a strong price movement and indicates a temporary break in the trend.
A bull flag forms during an uptrend with the flagpole pointing up, followed by a consolidation phase before a possible continuation of the bullish move. For now, the pattern has held, ETH has bounced from the 4H 200 EMA at $1,825. In this sense, the bulls are in control (despite the whale) for the time being.
Basically, two scenarios are conceivable. If the aforementioned support levels are broken to the downside, especially at the bottom of the flag, Ethereum could face further price decline towards $1,750. Conversely, a breakout of the flag pattern to the upside (around $1,900) could trigger a price rally of $2,000.
However, according to analyst Ali Martinez, that is where the price will hit Ethereum’s key supply wall, which is in the $2,000 to $2,060 range, where 832,640 addresses have bought more than 26 million ETH. “If ETH can break this resistance barrier, we can expect a rise to $2,330 or even $2,750,” Martinez believe.
Ethereum options expiration on Friday confirms the outlook
The biggest event this week for Bitcoin, Ethereum, and the entire crypto market will be the expiration of over $7 billion in options tomorrow, Friday, June 30. The current volume of options on the largest exchange, Deribit, is 14,107 calls, 9,445 puts and one put. -0.67 call ratio for Bitcoin. For Ethereum, there are currently 76,776 calls, 39,779 put options, and a put option ratio of 0.52.
Option volume (bypass)$BTC: 📈Calls=14,107.70, 📉Puts=9,445.50, ⚖️Put-call ratio=0.67 $ETH: 📈Calls=76,776.00, 📉Puts=39,779.00, ⚖️Put-call ratio=0.52
– coin options tracker bot (@optionstrackbot) June 29, 2023
A put-call ratio below 1 generally means that the number of call options is greater than the number of put options, indicating more bullish market sentiment. In this case, the put-call ratio for ETH is 0.52, which means that there are more call options compared to put options. Therefore, the ratio indicates that market participants are more likely to place bullish bets on the ETH price.
Featured Image from iStock, Chart from TradingView.com
