The Ethereum price has steadily rebounded in the past few weeks, thanks to the ongoing crypto rally. It jumped to a high of $3,562 on Monday morning, its highest point since June 20th, and 25% above its lowest point this month.
Will ETH price hit $10k?
One of the most trending questions in Polymarket is whether Ether will jump to $10,000 this year.
Current data shows that over $196k has been bet about this, with most traders expecting it to remain below $10,000 this year. Just 10% of the participants expect it to rise to $10,000 in 2024.
Polymarket has been one of the most popular betting platforms globally, and its actions have been mostly accurate. For example, most members correctly predicted that Joe Biden would not seek re-election as his campaign faced substantial resistance.
64% of the participants in a $312 million pool believe that Donald Trump will win the general election and that he will compete with Joe Biden.
Most Polymarket users believe that the Ethereum price will find it difficult to move from the current $3,530 to $10,000 since it needs to rise by at least 185% from the current level. While those moves are possible in the crypto industry, they are rare, especially among big coins like ETH and Bitcoin.
Technically, Ether’s price would only move to $10,000 if it first crosses the YTD high of $4,092, followed by its record high of $4,865.
Spot Ethereum ETF approval ahead
The next key catalyst for the Ethereum price will be the approval of a spot Ethereum ETF by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). All signs are that the agency will approve these funds this week, leading to more inflows among institutional investors.
A good pointer about this is among spot Bitcoin ETFs, which have added over $17 billion in net inflows this year.
Ethereum ETFs could follow suit and possibly gain at least $5 billion by the end of the year. As BanklessTimes mentioned earlier, the main concern about these ETFs is that investors will forego at least a 3.2% return each year. They will have to pay a fee of about 0.25% and then avoid the staking yield, usually about 3.25%.
The spot Ethereum ETF will come at a time when Ether balances in exchanges have crashed. Data by CryptoQuant shows that these balances have moved to 16.9 million, down from 18.9 million in January.
The other potential catalyst for Ethereum’s price will be the Federal Reserve, which is expected to start cutting interest rates later this year.
In a statement last week, Jerome Powell hinted that the bank was now mostly concerned about the labor market, where the unemployment rate has risen to 4.1%. A Fed rate cut would be good for risk assets like Ether and Bitcoin.
