Returns for leading altcoin Ethereum have historically lagged behind Bitcoin in October, but analysts are seeing signs that the trend is reversing.

QCP Capital Analysts: Ethereum Expects a Turnaround!

According to Kriptokoin.com, Ethereum's recent performance has not been very encouraging. Historically, Ethereum's average return in October has lagged behind Bitcoin. However, QCP Capital analysts state that there are positive signs that many derivatives investors believe in ETH's potential to break the underperformance trend. In this context, analysts make the following assessment:

“Historically, October has been a period where Bitcoin has gained an average of 22.9% in eight of the last nine years. Ether also tends to perform well, but its average return for October is only about 5%.”

Still, there are signs of optimism for the leading altcoin in the near term. QCP Capital draws attention to derivatives market indicators. “We observed a significant amount of ETH October call options being bought this morning,” analysts say. In current market conditions, there are $167 million worth of ETH call options expiring on October 11 at $63,600. In addition, according to Deribit data, there are 26,200 call option contracts expiring on October 18 worth $69 million.

In particular, ETH call options with a strike price of $2,800 expiring on October 11 saw the highest trading volume in the past 24 hours. There are significantly fewer put options in both the options expiring on October 11 and 18. This is creating bullish expectations among many traders that the altcoin’s price will rise above $2,800 by the expiration date. The increased demand for call options reflects the growing short-term optimism for ETH in the derivatives market.

Fourth Quarter Optimism and Historical Performance

Meanwhile, ETH usually sees strong returns in the fourth quarter of the year. Bitfinex analysts emphasize that the overall performance of the altcoin sector is more diverse. Historically, the first quarter is usually the strongest period for ETH and the broad altcoin market. The second quarter also occasionally offers strong results. However, analysts state that historical data for ETH and altcoins is more limited compared to Bitcoin. Bitfinex analysts make the following assessment:

“It is important to note that the data for ETH and altcoin returns is quite dynamic and relatively small compared to Bitcoin, as ETH only started trading in Q2 2016 and most of the top 100 altcoins by market cap only emerged in the last three or four years.”