As Ethereum has shifted from PoW to PoS, the economics of supply and demand underlying the two cryptocurrencies will continue to diverge, one observers said.
Bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH), the world’s top two cryptocurrencies by market value, moved in tandem for much of 2022. That positive relationship has weakened this year, signaling an impending regime change in the market.
As of Monday, the 30-day rolling correlation between changes in bitcoin and ether prices was 77%, the lowest since 2021 and notably weaker than 96% seen two months ago, according to crypto data provider Kaiko.
Ether, in the past, has decoupled from bitcoin for brief periods. The latest weakening of correlation may be long-lasting, meaning bitcoin, the world’s largest and most liquid digital asset, may no longer anchor ether and the broader market, according to Pulkit Goyal, Vice President of trading at OrBit Markets, an institutional liquidity provider of options and structured derivatives in digital assets.
“What we are seeing could be the beginning of a long-term regime change. As Ethereum has shifted from PoW to PoS, the economics of supply and demand underlying the 2 tokens will continue to diverge,” Goyal told CoinDesk.
“Bitcoin will cement its status as the “digital gold” or a blue-chip stock while Ether will be seen as a growth stock or an emerging market,” Goyal added.
In September 2022, Ethereum, the world’s largest smart contract blockchain, transitioned from the energy-intensive proof of work consensus mechanism of verifying transactions to the proof of stake setup. Recently, Ethereum implemented the Shapella upgrade, de-risking the passive investing strategy of locking or staking coins in the smart contract platform in return for rewards. The amount of ether burned by the network is closely tied to the degree of network usage.
Bitcoin, meanwhile, continues to be a macro asset, taking cues from inflation figures and expected changes in fiat liquidity and retaining its appeal as a hedge against traditional finance. Bitcoin’s pace of supply expansion is halved every four years through a programmed process called mining reward halving. The fourth halving is due next year.
“Both BTC and ETH seem increasingly driven by divergent idiosyncratic factors,” Kaiko’s latest weekly newsletter said, referring to the dwindling correlation between the two assets.
The decoupling between the two might boost trading activity in bitcoin-ether pairs listed on major exchanges, including Binance.
“For traders, the decoupling could present new opportunities to capture the relative value between the 2 tokens without involving the dollar. In fact, demand for options in the BTC/ETH cross has picked up lately in the OTC space,” Goyal said.
Disclaimer: CryptoNewsBook is an online aggregator that fetches latest crypto news from different sources. This article is provided for general information purposes ONLY and contains data fetched from third party sources; hence, we do not endorse its accuracy. For more details, kindly visit The Source. Please report any fake news or false statement to Our Support Team. If you are the original owner of this content and wish it to be removed on this platform, kindly forward your request to Our Support Team.
Also Note: Cryptocurrencies are unregulated, and no part of this article should be understood nor interpreted as a recommendation/advice. #s5
