Ether leads weekend crypto rally as treasury buyers boost token

[SINGAPORE] Second-ranked cryptocurrency Ether outpaced rivals over the weekend to lead a broad rally in digital assets, as demand from institutional investors and corporate treasury buyers builds.

Ether rose as much as 2.9 per cent on Monday (Aug 11) morning in Asia to more than US$4,300, its highest level since Dec 2021, while Bitcoin topped US$121,000 to come within striking distance of a record-high. 

The rise comes off the back of mounting interest in Ether among large investors. More than US$6.7 billion has poured into the nine US-listed exchange-traded funds for Ether this year.

So-called digital-asset treasury companies, listed vehicles that pivot into accumulating cryptocurrencies, are also giving Ether a boost. They have stockpiled some US$13 billion of Ether so far, according to data compiled by strategicethreserve.xyz.

Flows into Ether over Bitcoin constitute a “massive positive sentiment shift driven by strong spot exchange traded fund inflows, growing corporate treasury adoption and a broader stablecoin tailwind”, said Sean McNulty, derivatives trading lead of Apac at digital-asset prime brokerage FalconX.

Eric Trump, son of US President Donald Trump, who has financial interests in several digital-asset entities, applauded the Ether rally in a post on X. Bloomberg News reported on Friday that big investors are being sounded out on a plan for World Liberty Financial, the Trump family-backed venture, to set up a public company that would hold its WLFI tokens.

Ether options markets reflected the bullish sentiment with an overall put-call ratio of 0.39. The highest concentration of call options with a Dec 26 expiry is at US$6,000, according to Deribit data. BLOOMBERG