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Ethereum has, for the most part, established a foothold above the $3,500 price level throughout the week as investors continue to anticipate a return to the $4,000 mark. Interestingly, the optimism has seen the open interest of Ethereum surging to new highs. The surge in open interest, although a bullish sentiment indicator, can also serve as a bearish signal of an impending change in market trend.  Ultimately, this metric added to the current dynamics of the Ethereum ecosystem, including regulatory uncertainty and scalability concerns hinting at a complicated price trajectory for the price of Ethereum. Ethereum Open Interest Reaches New High Open interest is an efficient method for tracking the total number of open positions in a particular contract. Recent market dynamics and institutional investor interest have seen the total open interest in Ethereum futures surging above records set in the 2021 bull market phase. Related Reading: The Bulls Are Back: Spot Bitcoin Inflows Surge With New Records According to data from Coinglass, the open interest on Ethereum futures, which has been on a surge since February 5, recently set a new high of $14.11 billion on March 15. This wasn’t particularly surprising, as a strong buying momentum from the bulls in the prior days saw the price of Ethereum surging past the $4,000 mark for the first time in two years.  However, Ethereum has since reversed from the $4,000 price level and is currently trading below $3,600. On the other hand, the total open interest on Ethereum contracts has maintained around its all-time high level, which allowed it to cross over $14.10 billion again on March 28. The open interest weighted average also went up to 0.0462%, indicating an increase in the demand for leveraged ETH long positions. The majority ($4.55 billion) in the Ethereum futures market were registered on cryptocurrency exchange Binance. Bybit and OKX came in second and third, with $2.39 billion and $1.94 billion respectively. Interestingly, CME’s Ether futures also surged to $1.3 billion. At the time of writing, the CME’s Ether futures now sit at $1.31 billion, reiterating the committed bullishness among institutional investors. What’s Next For ETH? Ethereum has been trading flat since the beginning of the week and is currently on a 0.78% gain in the past seven days. All eyes are now on reports of the SEC looking into Ethereum’s security status, the industry awaits an official ruling similar to the one that was handed down in the XRP case that will finally provide clarity to the regulatory landscape. Related Reading: Shiba Inu Going To $0.0001: Crypto Analyst Reveals What Will Drive The Rally At the same time, investors continue to await the SEC’s decision regarding the applications of Spot Ethereum exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the US. According to a Bloomberg senior analyst, the likelihood of approval is only 25%. ETH price drops to $3,500 | Source: SHIBUSD on Tradingview.com Featured image from Money, chart from Tradingview.com