Ethereum (ETH) briefly climbed above $2,500 on Wednesday, the first time in over a week as renewed risk-on sentiment in tech stocks spilled over into the crypto market.
The move triggered $53.7 million in ETH futures liquidations over the past 24 hours, with liquidated short positions accounting for $43 million, per Coinglass data. That marks a third straight day of shorts leading liquidations.
The rise follows improving risk-on sentiment in stocks as the tech-heavy NASDAQ climbed 1.3% and the S&P 500 gained 0.7%.
Much of those gains came on the back of a 10% spike in shares of Elon Musk's SpaceX after the company reported a 161% YoY revenue growth in the third quarter. Musk said that SpaceX and his automaker Tesla have set up special committees to discuss a merger, according to CNBC.
The rise in ETH and other crypto majors, alongside the move in stock indices, builds on the improving correlation between both asset classes over the past week. Cryptocurrencies declined alongside tech stocks last week after AI-related spending concerns sparked sell-offs in key semiconductor names across the US, Korea and Taiwan markets.
Trading firm Wintermute expect a sustained recovery in crypto if more tech and AI-related names report improved Q3 earnings.
Meanwhile, despite ETH's modest recovery over the past two days, exchange-traded fund (ETF) investors are not yet convinced. US spot ETH ETFs recorded $26.13 million in net outflows on Tuesday, marking 15 negative readings out of the last 16 trading days, per SoSoValue data.
But there are some positives from the on-chain side as Ethereum staking rose to a record 43.8 million ETH, representing 35.9% of total supply, according to Bitwise.
Ethereum could test the $2,548 resistance as it looks set for a daily close above the 20-day and 50-day Exponential Moving Averages (EMAs) at $2,501 and $2,483, respectively.
If ETH holds the recovery above the short-term EMAs and clears $2,548, it faces the $2,636 hurdle before retesting $2,781 resistance.
On the downside, ETH continues to find support in the sub-$2,400 region, with the 100-day EMA and $2,355 horizontal level proving sticky for bulls over the past week. A drop below these levels could see ETH fall to support at $2,204 and then $1,971 if the decline continues.
The 14-day Relative Strength Index (RSI) around 50 and a Stochastic reading near 72 suggest a sideways-to-up bias with scope for further gains, though the latter is approaching overbought territory.