Focus Shifts to Ether: Americas Crypto Market Outlook

By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless stated otherwise) As the crypto market, including bitcoin ($84,969.31), consolidates recent gains, attention turns to cross pairs, particularly the ether-bitcoin (ETH/BTC) ratio, which may offer new opportunities. Over the past 24 hours, ether ($2,837.03) has seen a gain of over 4%, nearing $3,200, while bitcoin remains relatively stable above $93,000. Both the CoinDesk 20 and CoinDesk 80 indices have risen approximately 1%. The momentum behind ether has pushed the ETH/BTC ratio up by 4%, solidifying a bullish technical breakout above the descending trendline established in August. This pattern suggests an impending bull run for ether against bitcoin, supported by positive fundamental developments such as the Fusaka upgrade. The Fusaka upgrade, rolled out on Wednesday, enhances Ethereum's scalability. It does so by increasing blob capacity and introducing a more efficient data-availability system via PeerDAS. According to CoinMetrics, the upgrade "boosts Ethereum’s Layer-1 execution capacity through EIP-7935, raising the protocol’s default gas limit to 60M. This directly increases the number of transactions that can fit in a block, allowing for higher throughput, less congestion, and cheaper gas fees." Analysts, including BRN's Timothy Misir, view the upgrade as a positive development for ether, citing network growth and renewed aggressive ETH accumulation by significant wallets. "Network growth touched 190,000 new addresses in a single day, indicating genuine organic expansion post-Fusaka," Misir noted, highlighting the renewed aggressive ETH accumulation by wallets holding 1,000-10,000 ETH. Additionally, spot ether ETFs in the U.S. attracted $140 million in investments on Wednesday, while XRP funds drew $50 million, and BTC and SOL ETFs saw outflows. PayPal's stablecoin, PYUSD, has grown over 36% in the past month, becoming the sixth-largest stablecoin. In traditional markets, there's concern over the impact of rising Japanese government bond yields on risk assets, with ING suggesting a potential rally in the U.S. 10-year Treasury yield. It's essential to stay alert to these developments. For more on today's altcoin and derivatives activity, see CryptoMarkets Today. Key Events to Watch: For a comprehensive list of this week's events, refer to CoinDesk's "Crypto Week Ahead". Token Events and Conferences are also covered in "Crypto Week Ahead". Market Trends: Bitcoin Statistics and Technical Analysis are available, along with insights into Crypto Equities, Crypto Treasury Companies, and ETF Flows, including Spot BTC and ETH ETFs. Source: Farside Investors Other market movements and updates can be found in the regular market updates.