Ugh. Not a good couple of weeks for Ethereum investors, as the DeFi King has dipped down below $1700, now trading 55% below its open of $3722 back on New Year’s Day.

BTC Dominates

Of further concern for fans of Vitalik’s creation will be the underperformance against Bitcoin over the last month or so. While the market as a whole has plummeted amid the macro sentiment and fallout from the Terra circus, there have at least been small relief rallies over the last few days for Bitcoin. Ethereum, on the other hand, has been pretty much constantly dropping.

The chart below shows it performance against Bitcoin. ETH strongly outperformed BTC through 2020 and 2021, as the bull market raged and ETH leveraged its higher volatility and smaller market cap. However, as the market has turned this year, we have seen BTC re-assert its dominance over all things crypto, as has historically been the case in pullback periods.

Additional Problems

Digging into the fundamentals here throws up factors for ETH’s decline beyond simply the bloodbath taking place across the board. That is the fabled Merge, which has been promised, postponed and re-promised for as long as crypto enthusiasts can remember. At this point, the Merge triggers traumatic memories in my mind of lockdown back home in Ireland.

I think we had five lockdowns total, ranging from three weeks to 6 months long. Each one brought promises that it was the last, but they simply kept on coming, thick and fast. 8 PM curfews, 2KM perimeters around one’s house, exercise quotas and more, it was a constant kick-the-can-down-the-road exercise as our government repeatedly fell short of its own targets and failed to plan accordingly.

While the ETH Merge is still seemingly slated for August, last week was a reminder that it is far from set in stone, as it hit a stumbling block when the Beacon Chain went through a seven-block reorganisation (or reorg) last week.  To be exact, seven blocks from number 3,887,075 to 3,887,081 were knocked out of the Beacon Chain between 08:55:23 and 08:56:35 AM UTC.

To translate this into non-computer whizz speak, a reorg is the name given to an event when a block that was part of the main chain (the canonical chain) gets knocked off due to a competing block beating it out. Typically, this can occur via either a malicious attack or a bug.

The Ethereum beacon chain experienced a 7-block deep reorg ~2.5h ago. This shows that the current attestation strategy of nodes should be reconsidered to hopefully result in a more stable chain! (proposals already exist) pic.twitter.com/BkQrKuUlw1

— Martin Köppelmann 🇺🇦 (@koeppelmann) May 25, 2022

Ethereum developer Preston Van Loon suggested that in this instance it happened due to a “non-trivial segmentation” of new and old client node software, ruling out any malice. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin declared his theory a “good hypothesis.”

This, unfortunately, shows that the analysis by @gakonst and @VitalikButerin here was too optimistic when the article claimed re-org stability will improve in POS over POW.
We have not seen 7 block reorgs on Ethereum mainnet in years.https://t.co/G5g8acG3L8 pic.twitter.com/AvZ6ygZRxs

— Martin Köppelmann 🇺🇦 (@koeppelmann) May 25, 2022

My Thoughts

This is a hiccup but nothing to be concerned about in the long-term. However, it certainly hammered home how tenuous the slated August timeline. While many have long since given up on predicting the timing of this elusive overhaul, the enormity and scale of the project has certainly been underestimated by the cryptocurrency community.

The latest dip in Ethereum – it wobbled significantly last week while Bitcoin trudged along just fine – can likely be attributed to this extra doubt over the roadmap. With the upgrade largely priced in for August, and the market uber-sensitive right now as investors simply try to survive, news like this will always trigger selling.

With sentiment worse in the wider market than at any point post the GFC, and cryptocurrency facing all sorts of difficult questions in the aftermath of the Terra implosion, the space simply needs Ethereum to hold up its end of the bargain and pull through with a successful Merge.

I believe we are still on course for that in August – with the Ropsten testnet merge providing some good news earlier today, one of the deciding events before application to the mainnet. But then again, I believed lockdown would last three weeks, and I ended up spending so much time in my bedroom over the last two years that I forgot what the sky looked like.

Let’s hope I’m not repeating my past mistakes here.

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Ethereum (ETH) has managed to see some strong recovery this week. The coin has finally risen above $1900, and there could still be more upside to further test $2000. But how far can the bulls keep the momentum going? Turns out not that long. Here are key highlights:

• Ethereum has gained around 7% over the last 24 hours.

• The coin is consolidating the price above $1900.

• A decisive run towards $2000 is possible in the days ahead.

Data Source: TradingView 

Ethereum’s recovery and its limits

The fact that ETH has managed to hit $1900 is a very good sign. It means that the downtrend we saw last week has reversed or at least stopped for now. If the coin can manage to close the day above this price, then you should expect a decent upward rally. 

It is likely though, that ETH will face major resistance at $2000. However, we expect bulls to just have enough in their tank to overcome. Once the coin rises above $2000, it will trigger a decent demand that will push it towards around $2300. This will be a rise of 21% from the current price. 

But if ETH fails to hold $1900, we may see more weakness follow. However, at the moment downside risks are not that big. At worse, ETH will likely bottom at $1700, where it has found very strong support in recent days. We are also seeing large accounts buy more ETH. This is a sign that the long-term prospects for the coin are quite positive.

Why Ethereum could grow this year

It is unlikely that Ethereum will hit the $10,000 price that we all expected at the start of the year. But the coin still has so much left to give.

At the moment, conservative estimates could push ETH to $6000 by the end of the year. That will be around 3x growth in 2022.

The post Ethereum (ETH) rebounds to hit $1900 – Can it keep going? appeared first on CoinJournal.

Ethereum (ETH) price has experienced a sharp drop as stability doubts immerge as Ethereum blockchain proof-of-stake (PoS) merge approaches.

At the time of writing, ETH was trading at $1,853.44, down 5.78% after pulling back from a daily high of $1,976.57. 

The Ethereum Beacon chain that was to introduce PoS into the blockchain went through a 7-block deep reorganization in the past 24 hours.

Block reorganization happens when there is an inconsistency in the order of blocks which mainly happens as a result of malicious activities or a bug.

The block reorganization in the Ethereum was a result of a bug that showed that the Ethereum shift to PoS might not be stable as advocated by Vitalik Buterin, the Ethereum co-founder.

Ethereum stability doubt

Although the recent reorganization was limited, the Ethereum developers are still trying to establish the cause, so far, they confirmed that the blockchain was not attacked.

Gnosis founder, Martin Koppelmann, noted that Buterin might have been too optimistic that the reorganization stability will improve if Ethereum will shift to PoS.

Koppelmann said:

‘’We have not seen 7 block reorgs on Ethereum mainnet in years.’’

However, he complimented the Ethereum community for acting so fast on finding the cause and the solution to this issue.

Besides, the blockchain shift PoS is anticipated to happen this year in order to increase blockchain accessibility. Buterin expects the shift to take place by August 2022.

The future of Ethereum markets

With the expiry of some option contracts happening this week, the Ethereum futures market seems to be on shaky ground. 

In the last 12 hours, the token has experienced a sizeable amount of liquidations, about $118 million which is twice that of Bitcoin. Almost 97% of these were long positions which shows that traders were ready for the Ethereum recovery.

However, the expected recovery has not yet happened since ETH has been lagging in the crypto market. Its losses were sparked after the Federal Reserve meeting that showed that some Central bank officials suggested further interest rate hikes this year

The post Ethereum (ETH) price drops 5% on stability doubts as its POS merge approaches appeared first on CoinJournal.

Ethereum price made a strong bearish breakout on Thursday as investors reflected on the latest minutes by the Federal Reserve. ETH crashed to a low of $1,820, which was the lowest level since May 12th this year. 

Fed to be more restrictive

Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies came under intense pressure in the past few sessions as investors reflected on the latest Fed minutes.

On Wednesday, the minutes showed that members were increasingly more hawkish than what the market was expecting.

Before the minutes, most analysts were expecting that the Fed will deliver two 0.5% rate hikes in the upcoming two meetings. They also expected it to move to the normal 0.25% rate hikes in the next meetings. 

The minutes published on Wednesday showed that the bank was actually more hawkish than that. This means that it will deliver several 0.50% hikes and then start slowing its balance sheet.

The Fed is attempting to solve the twin challenge of lowering inflation while at the same engineering a soft landing. In most cases, this is usually an extremely difficult situation.

Learn more about how to buy Ethereum.

Ethereum price is falling since these are uncertain times for cryptocurrency traders. They have never lived through a situation when the Fed is hiking rates aggressively.

There are other challenges that are driving Ethereum prices. For one, there are still concerns about the decentralized finance industry after the Terra implosion. The total value locked (TVL) in Ethereum’s DeFi protocol has crashed to $68 billion from its all-time high of almost $175 billion.

Further, the NFT and gaming industries that helped Ethereum have all recoiled. Recent data show that NFT sales have plateaued while the number of gamers in places like Axie Infinity and Decentraland has declined. So, what next for Ethereum prices?

Ethereum price forecast

The current Ethereum price action was easy to predict. In the past few weeks, the coin has been forming a bearish flag pattern that is shown in blue. Historically, this pattern is usually a bearish sign. The coin has moved below the 25-day and 50-day exponential moving averages.

Further, Ethereum had formed an inverted cup and handle pattern, which is usually a bearish sign. It also did a break and retest pattern as it retested the lower side of the pattern. Therefore, the coin will likely do a bearish breakout as bears target the next key support at $1,500.

The post Ethereum price prediction: Dangerous patterns have formed appeared first on CoinJournal.

Ethereum (ETH) has fallen below $2000 once again. The coin had managed to post some gains after bottoming at $1700 a few weeks ago. However, that upward momentum has slowed, and we may see some decline. But this is not necessarily something to worry about. Here are some key points:

• The recent decline below $2000 doesn’t appear to be strong

• ETH will likely rebound almost instantly in a few days

• The coin will regain $2000 and trigger a buying frenzy that pushes ETH to $2400

Data Source: TradingView 

Ethereum price analysis and prediction

After falling to $1700 just two weeks ago, ETH has managed to hold out. There were worries that the coin would touch $1000 in what could have been its worst downtrend this year. However, ETH quickly recaptured $2000 but has since lost it again. In fact, over the last 7 days, the coin has struggled to maintain the price above the $2k mark. 

However, we expect this time round things to be different. Although ETH is slightly below $2k, the coin will likely regain this important threshold in the days ahead. This will send a crucial bullish signal that will likely trigger demand for ETH. The coin will shoot up to $2400 before it slows. 

But there are some important risks. For example, if the current fall below $2000 turns out to be more serious than expected, this thesis becomes invalidated. If anything, failure to hold the $1800 support could push ETH toward $1500 in the short term.

How to profit from ETH in the short term?

The long-term value of Ethereum has never been in doubt. But short-term volatility will be here for the rest of the year. 

The best way to profit right now is to buy once the price consolidates above $2000. But if you are not sure about the possible risks, you can watch the coin and see if it breaks $1800. Once this happens, $1500 will be a great entry point.

The post Ethereum (ETH) could target $2400 despite falling below $2000 again appeared first on Coin Journal.