Ether Rallies to $3.6K as Bitcoin Holds Steady at $71K

Check out how tokens like Lido, Rocket Pool, and ether.fi are tagging along with Ether's gains. So, Ether was on fire during the early trading hours in East Asia, leaving the CoinDesk 20 Index in the dust.

Seems like everyone's digging Ether's vibe lately, especially with the buzz around the new DeFi protocol Ethena. And hey, there's also chatter about whether we'll get the green light for a spot Ether ETF. While Bitcoin was chilling, Ether was smashing records, hitting $3,600, while Bitcoin just sat around $71,000, according to CoinDesk.

The CoinDesk 20, the cool kids' table for liquid digital assets, was up 3.5% and rocking above 2,600. And those cool cats at Lido DAO and Rocket Pool ETH? Well, their tokens were jumping up by 10% and 8%, respectively, according to CoinGecko.

Seems like Ether's getting all this love because of Ethena, which has been locking in more than $2.2 billion lately, after hitting $2 billion on April 6. Plus, Ethena's synthetic stablecoin, USDe, just hooked up with Bitcoin as collateral – according to the word on the street.

But hey, let's not get ahead of ourselves thinking this Ether hype train is all about an ETF. Betting odds on Polymarket give it a 16% chance of happening by the end of May and only 45% by the end of June.

Some traders had their bets on Bitcoin taking the lead after the Ether-Bitcoin ratio dropped below a key level last week. But turns out, Ether stole the spotlight, leading to some quick shifts in market positions, as Singapore-based QCP Capital pointed out on Telegram. And yeah, there's been a lot of covering on those short positions in Ether front-end call options.

"We thought Bitcoin was gonna be the star of the show last Friday, but turns out, Ether stole the spotlight," QCP wrote. Gotta love how unpredictable this crypto world can be!