Ethereum: Appetite from institutional investors for ETH explodes and price will moon – Bitmex CEO

• The BitMEX CEO said that while retail has been selling currently institutions have continued with ETH and crypto purchase.
• He also added that Ethereum’s PoS transition will continue to attract more institutional players in the upcoming years.

Although the ETH price has come under significant selling pressure in recent weeks, BitMEX CEO remains optimistic citing huge institutional interest. During his recent interview, BitMEX CEO Alexander Höptner said that the institutional appetite for Ethereum (ETH) and crypto continue to grow despite the bear market.

Speaking at the Token2049 conference in Singapore on Sept. 28, the BitMEX executive said that there’s not a single hint of slowdown for the institutional push in crypto. He added that finance industry players typically see these bear markets as opportunities for innovation. The bear market provides them the luxury of time which is not possible in the bull market.

Höptner said that financial institutions participate for a long-term horizon and thus they will be buying and holding crypto assets. He also pointed out the opposite behavior between retail and institutional players in the current bear market conditions. While retail players are pulling out, institutions are still making a push. The BitMEX CEO said:

I think that the institutions are making themselves ready now to provide the services and retail will come back and push it up again.

Institutions bullish on Ethereum

Earlier this month, the world’s second-largest crypto platform Ethereum underwent the biggest software upgrade – Merge – in the history of crypto. With the Merge, the Ethereum blockchain completely transitions to a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) blockchain which makes it more scalable, efficient, cost-effective, and environmentally friendly.

As the Ethereum 2.0 blockchain satisfies the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) concerns, the BitMEX CEO is confident that it will further attract institutional interest. In reference to the recently deployed Merge upgrade, Alexander Höptner said:

This is the ideal public event to build financial products for ESG conformity. Institutions can offer products that are really for a wide audience once again while checking one of the boxes that they have for their compliance.

BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes has been very bullish on Ethereum and believes that the Ethereum (ETH) price can touch more than $3,000 by the end of the year. This is despite the monetary tightening happening in the U.S. The BitMEX executives think that the demand for Ethereum (ETH) will continue to rise despite the macro conditions.

On-chain data for Ethereum

The on-chain data for Ethereum (ETH) also has positive indicators for Ethereum. As per data from IntoTheBlock, the total number of ETH addresses created daily has been growing this week.

Courtesy: IntoTheBlock

Also, data provider Santiment noted that the ETH accumulation by whale addresses has continued to grow over the years. It states: ” #Ethereum‘s top 10 non-exchange and top 10 exchange addresses collectively hold ~32M $ETH, double what they held 4 years ago. The top 10 non-exchange addresses now hold 23.3M $ETH, compared to top 10 exchange addresses holding 8.6M”.