On Wednesday, Ether (ETH) maintained a price above $2,300, moving away from the lows of $1,940 recorded on March 29. This upward trend is reflected in the increased demand for leveraged trading, with ETH futures open interest reaching $25.4 billion. However, skepticism remains among traders due to lackluster decentralized application (DApp) revenue and negative funding rates.
Despite a recent rally pushing ETH to $2,350, the perpetual futures funding rate has struggled to remain above 5%, indicating a lack of confidence from bullish traders. This funding rate has dipped below 0% multiple times, suggesting a preference for bearish leveraged positions.
Institutional interest in Ether has been notable, with US-listed Ether spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) seeing net inflows of $248 million over the past ten days. Additionally, Bitmine Immersion announced the purchase of $312 million worth of ETH, bringing its total holdings to 4.87 million ETH, valued at approximately $11.46 billion. However, Bitmine's current holdings are trading 13% below their acquisition cost.
In contrast, the assets under management for US-listed Ether ETFs have decreased from $20.5 billion to $13.7 billion in the past three months, reflecting a broader trend of reduced interest in cryptocurrencies amidst a challenging market environment.