In particular, derivatives markets indicate that traders are going for call options projecting a rally in advance before the September upgrade, while futures and options indicate investors expect the value to drop after in a “sell-the-news” scenario, Bloomberg reported on August 12. Most specifically, the investors expect Ethereum to rise to about $2,200 from the $1,880 value recorded by press time.
Anticipation for a price pullback
Interestingly, after the Merge, which has been revised to around September 15, there is a trend for demand for downside protection. It can therefore be concluded that some investors are speculating a downward momentum post-Merge. It is worth noting that there has been a level of uncertainty regarding Ethereum’s price action after the Merge, although the crypto has rallied since the initial announcement. Notably, as reported by Finbold, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin confirmed that the date had been revised to around September 15. In this line, a crypto trading expert by the Twitter username of Rager believes that due to the revision of the Merge, Ethereum might record some pullback before climbing. This is after speculation emerged that there may be a week of error surrounding the exact target date. Additionally, the anticipation around the software upgrade had resulted in Ethereum’s options open interest hitting a high $6.6 billion in return, flipping Bitcoin (BTC) for the first time.
Other effects of the Merge
Elsewhere, Marc Zeller, head of developer relations at Aave, warned about some of the potential overlooked effects of the Merge. According to Zeller: It is worth noting that not all Ethereum community members are in support of the upgrade. There are speculations that disgruntled developers might fork Ethereum to retain the Proof-of-Work (PoW) status. However, Buterin has exuded confidence that a fork will not significantly impact Ethereum while calling on miners to migrate to other Proof-of-Work convenient and friendly assets, Ethereum Classic (ETC). Disclaimer: The content on this site should not be considered investment advice. Investing is speculative. When investing, your capital is at risk.
