Ethereum Price Surges to New ATH Above $4,400
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Ethereum Hits New All-Time High
Ether hit a new record high of $4,416 today and currently changing hands at around $4,353. The last time the digital asset reached a record all-time high was $4,384.43 back in May.
The surge in value also coincides with the network’s latest Altair upgrade which Ethereum 2.0 developer Preston Van Loon announced that it successfully activated just earlier in the week.
Ethereum has been the most used blockchain, with more than 3,000 decentralized apps or Dapps, running on the platform.
Along with Ether other tokens including Binance Coin and Solana rallied alongside Polkadot, gaining back its lost value, hinting that another alt season is arriving. Other cryptocurrencies like Cardano gained over 5% to $2.03 while Dogecoin was up more than 25% to $0.30. XRP, Litecoin, Uniswap also rallied in the range of 7-10% over the last 24 hours.
Over $1B ETH Options Will Expire Today
According to data from Bybt, over $1 billion worth of ether options will expire today, with investors highly bullish of the anticipation. Data indicates that investors placed some highly optimistic bets, with many purchasing call options on ether with a $5,000 strike price.
At the time of writing, call options with this strike price had an open interest of more than 116,000 ETH. However, unless the cryptocurrency rises significantly before the options expiry takes place today, the aforementioned contracts will expire worthlessly.
While those who purchased ether call options contracts with lower strike prices will end up being profitable. According to analysts, investors who own these derivatives contracts have a vested interest in keeping Ethereum’s price above $4,200, as doing so would result in more than $200 million worth of profits.