“Approval of Ethereum ETF Expected to Drive Open Interest in Futures Contracts to a Record-breaking $14 Billion”

"Approval of Ethereum ETF Expected to Drive Open Interest in Futures Contracts to a Record-breaking $14 Billion"

"Approval of Ethereum ETF Expected to Drive Open Interest in Futures Contracts to a Record-breaking $14 Billion"

Due to the sudden shift in market expectations towards the approval of the US Ether (ETH) spot ETF application, there has been a significant increase in open interest for Ether futures contracts (i.e., the USD value locked in active Ether futures contracts). According to data from Coinglass, the total network open interest for ETH futures contracts has risen by 25% in the past 24 hours, reaching a record high of $14.6 billion. The previous peak was set on March 15th this year at $13.2 billion.


Source:
Coinglass
The data shows that the open interest for Ether contracts on Binance is $5.5 billion, while it is approximately $3.1 billion on Bybit. However, when calculated in terms of Ether, the total network open interest for ETH futures contracts is about 3.84 million ETH, still a distance away from the peak of 5 million ETH reached in October 2022.
According to TradingView data, Ether started an upward trend from around 3 a.m. on Tuesday (21st) and rose from around $3,150 to nearly $3,700, representing a gain of over 16%. With the rise of Ether, the total amount of liquidated contracts in the past 24 hours is nearly $325 million, with approximately 77,000 people being liquidated. Among them, approximately $264 million worth of short positions were liquidated.

Source:
Coinglass
Eric Balchunas, a senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg, recently stated on the X platform that he and another Bloomberg analyst, James Seyffart, have raised the probability of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approving the Ether spot ETF application from 25% to 75%. Meanwhile, according to a report from CoinDesk citing sources, the SEC has requested the exchanges seeking to list potential Ether spot ETFs to accelerate the update of their 19b-4 filings, which is a sign that the regulatory agency is trying to expedite the process.
The regulatory agency is scheduled to make a decision on VanEck’s Ether spot ETF on May 23rd (Thursday). As previously reported by Zombit, Nate Geraci, President of ETF Store, stated yesterday that the SEC must approve both 19b-4s (rule change filings) and S-1s (registration statements) for an ETF to truly go live. However, considering the SEC’s involvement in Ether ETFs, the agency may choose to approve 19b-4s first and then slow down the approval process for S-1s, especially considering the lack of participation.
Data source