Share this article
Market Wrap: Bitcoin Passes $10.7K; Ethereum Gas Usage Hits Record September Highs
Bitcoin's price hit its highest level in over 10 days while gas on Ethereum is in record use.
Updated Sep 14, 2021, 9:55 a.m. Published Sep 14, 2020, 8:23 p.m.
Bitcoin is making gains Monday and Ethereum usage is hitting record highs in September.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
Don't miss another story.Subscribe to the Crypto Daybook Americas Newsletter today. See all newsletters
- Bitcoin trading around $10,669 as of 20:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET). Gaining 3.4% over the previous 24 hours.
- Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $10,250-$10,759
- BTC above its 10-day and 50-day moving averages, a bullish signal for market technicians.
The price of bitcoin hit as high as $10,759 on spot exchanges such as Coinbase Monday. That level has not been seen since Sept. 3 and the cryptocurrency is now heading into bullish territory.
“The trend is indeed higher,” said Darius Sit, managing partner of quant firm QCP Capital.
Read More: Bitcoin’s Jump to $10.7K Ends 10-Day Sideways Trend
Buy liquidations, the crypto equivalent of a margin call that wipes out short-sellers on derivatives exchanges such as BitMEX seemed to be helping to push bitcoin’s price up. A total of $19 million buy liquidations were more than double the $9.1 million in sell liquidations over the weekend and into Monday on BitMEX, helping fuel the price upswing.
In the options market, some traders remained highly bullish that bitcoin can hit new highs.
“While bitcoin price dabbles around $10,000 now, traders have still priced in a chance that bitcoin will trade at $20,000 by March 2021,” said William Purdy, an options trader and founder of analysis firm PurdyAlerts.
Indeed, based on how options are currently trading in the market, it appears as if options traders are estimating a 10% chance that bitcoin will be at $20,000 by the March 2021 expiration date.
Over in the futures market, investor interest seems to have waned somewhat.
Read More: Some Bitcoin Traders Are Betting on a $36K Price by Year’s End
"Bitcoin futures aggregate open interest has dropped $1 billion, or 20%, since the start of September,” noted Jason Lau, chief operating officer for cryptocurrency exchange OKCoin.
However, Lau said a higher bitcoin price could mean an increase in futures interest. “It seems traders are in a holding pattern,” Lau added. “U.S. markets have had a strong opening this morning, which pushed BTC up 5%, so it will be interesting to see what impact that has on open interest in the coming days."
Ethereum record gas usage
Ether , the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, was up Monday, trading around $375 and climbing 3.2% in 24 hours as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET).
Read More: Uniswap Takes Over SushiSwap Less Than 24 Hrs. After Rewards Drop
The total amount of “gas” (or costs) used on the Ethereum network to send transactions and interact with decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols hit new highs in September. On Sept. 6, a record 80 billion units of gas was used on the network, and Friday (Sept. 11) was the second-highest usage day ever, at 79,743,954,147 units used.
Read More: SushiSwap Users Ordered Changes, but the Protocol Can’t Deliver
“I have short-term concerns about Ethereum network congestion but it’s a positive for the long term because it shows demand,” said Brian Mosoff, chief executive officer of Eth Capital, which invests in the Ethereum ecosystem.
The short-term issues could cause pain from a usability standpoint, Mosoff added. “Realistically, until the second and third phases roll out in ETH 2.0, high gas costs or requiring the use of a supporting or competing network are going to be the reality.”
Read More: The Virtual CoinDesk Invest: Ethereum Economy Event October 14
Other markets
Digital assets on the CoinDesk 20 are all in the green Monday. Notable winners as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET):
- neo (NEO) + 9.9%
- lisk (LSK) + 7.5%
- ethereum classic (ETC) + 3%
Read More: How Bitcoin Correlations Drive the Narrative
Equities:
- Asia’s Nikkei 225 ended the day up 0.65% as investors digested signals that easy money policies would continue in Japan.
- Europe’s FTSE 100 closed flat, in the red 0.10% amid reports industrial production numbers have not returned to pre-coronavirus levels.
- In the United States, the S&P 500 climbed 1.6% with tech leading the way, boosted by Nvidia's $40 billion deal to buy chip designer Arm Holdings from Softbank.
Read More: SEC Charges Rapper TI With Securities Violations for Promoting 2017 ICO
Commodities:
- Oil is flat, in the red 0.01%. Price per barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude: $37.29.
- Gold was in the green 1% and at $1,958 as of press time.
Read More: Iran May Fund Car Imports With Cryptocurrency Mining
Treasurys:
- U.S. Treasury bond yields climbed Monday. Yields, which move in the opposite direction as price, were up most on the two-year bond, in the green 3%.
Read More: The Crypto Firms Collaborating on a Swiss Franc Stablecoin
More For You
What to know:
- As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
- GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
- Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.
More For You
Bitcoin Rebounds to $93K From Post-Fed Lows, but Altcoins Remain Under Pressure
Downward pressure on bitcoin is losing steam, with the market stabilizing but not yet out of the woods, said one analyst.
What to know:
- Bitcoin rebounded from a sharp early selloff on Thursday to trade above $93,000 shortly after the close of U.S. stocks.
- The late-day gain in bitcoin came alongside a rebound in the Nasdaq from big morning losses; the tech index closed with just a 0.25% loss.
- Downward pressure on bitcoin is losing steam, said one analyst, but the market is not yet out of the woods.
Top Stories
