IG Group investors are 18:1 long on Ripple, 12:1 long on Ethereum
IG traders remain bullish on bitcoin, but still lean more strongly to the altcoins.
Investors at the contract for different (CFD) company IG Group, seem to be feeling especially optimistic about the future of Ripple and Ethereum, with long positions (betting on a future price increase) outnumbering short positions (betting on a future price decrease) 18 to 1, and 12 to 1 respectively according to Bloomberg.
This outdoes other popular non-crypto long positions such as Apple stock (long to short 10 to 1). It also outdoes bitcoin, which is sometimes seeing long to short ratios of around 4:1, according to Adam Blemings in a 5 February interview.
This is a distinct change from around 12 months ago when bitcoin was seeing ratios closer to 10:1. Bitcoin's crypto market share has recently waned, dropping from over 50% to about 35% from mid December 2017 to the start of January 2018, according to CoinMarketCap.
"The small coins are still seeing more buyers than sellers," said Blemings. IG also offers CFDs on Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin Gold, all of which seem to remain popular options.
But despite the increasingly bearish sentiments for bitcoin, it's still far from unpopular and still plays an integral role in the cryptocurrency ecosystem.
Blemings also said there's still plenty of appetite from traders despite the current market dip, with no decrease in trading volume since prices started dropping. IG traders seem to be very bullish on crypto at the moment, especially Ripple and Ethereum, but it's still one platform among many, and other cryptocurrency futures markets might have different sentiments.
How to trade cryptocurrency futures.
Source: Bloomberg
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Disclosure: At the time of writing the author holds ETH, IOTA, ICX, VEN, XLM, NANO, SALT