BeInCrypto Weekly News Round-Up: March 26, 2021

This week, BTC and ETH saw their lowest levels on exchanges ever. Additionally, $6 billion worth of BTC options contracts expired on March 25. Meanwhile, the token of Theta Network breached the top 10 in market cap, as it delayed the launch of its 3.0 mainnet.

Lowest Levels on Exchanges Yet

The growing interest in cryptocurrencies has largely been reflected in the two most significant ones, BTC (BTC) and ETH (ETH) price surge. This week, that popularity has been reflected in the lowest amount of either coin available on crypto exchanges to date.

According to data from cryptocurrency analyst Santiment, on March 21, the percentage of ETH on exchanges dipped below 20%. This is the lowest it has been since the analyst began recording the data. Just over a year ago, the percentage hit a record high of 27%.

Meanwhile, on March 23, Coinbase saw a withdrawal of 14,608 BTC, valued at $804 million. According to Crypto Quant, this massive withdrawal led to the total of BTC held on exchanges falling to an all-time low of roughly 2.31 million BTC.

The growing consensus is that this is because both coins are seeing increasing institutional interest. For instance, Grayscale Investments Grayscale ETH Trust (GETH) has been attracting investment from larger institutions. Following the example of MicroStrategy, other major companies have been scooping up BTC as a reserve asset.

$6 Billion BTC Options Expire

On Friday, March 26, a record $6 billion worth of BTC options were set to expire, according to data from cryptocurrency market analysts Bybt. The massive figure is a result of a sustained increase in open interest on BTC options market-wide. 

However, BTC has struggled over the past week, its price dipping to nearly $50,000 on March 25. There is suspicion this drop might result from options traders pushing the price lower ahead of the expiration. Then, after expiry, they buy or sell the asset depending on the price level. This is colloquially known as the “max pain” method. If this is the case, perhaps BTC could see a bump over the weekend.

Theta Network’s Ups and Downs

Finally, this week Theta Network had a conflicting pair of news stories. On March 23, the native token of the Theta Network (THETA) surpassed the Chainlink token to reach number 10 in terms of market cap. Over the past month, the token nearly tripled in price. At the time of writing, it surpassed Litecoin to achieve the number 9 spot and is trading around $12.50.

Despite the increased interest in the P2P streaming platform, Theta Network experienced a setback this week. On March 24, Theta Network developers announced they would have to delay the anticipated mainnet launch of Theta 3.0. Although originally scheduled for April 21, 2021, the launch date was set back to  June 30, 2021. According to Theta, the postponement will enable it to apply finishing touches before going live. 

Tune in next Friday for BeInCrypto’s latest weekly roundup!

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