Ethereum forming a double top? ETH price loses 12.5% amid Evergrande contagion fears

September 20, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Cathie Wood

The pattern's neckline support near $1,984 emerges as Ethereum's downside target.

Ethereum's native asset Ether (ETH) prices slumped on Sept. 20 amid a broad selloff in the cryptocurrency market, led by worries about a potential housing bubble crisis brewing in China.

The ETH/USD exchange rate dropped as much as 12.52% to $2,911 on the Coinbase exchange, hitting its lowest levels since the beginning of August 2021. Elsewhere in the crypto market, Bitcoin (BTC), Binance Coin (BNB), Cardano (ADA), Solana (SOL), and other top tokens plunged in tandem.

*The performance of top ten crypto assets in the past 24 hours. Source: Messari*

The drop imitated the mood in the broader market as United States equities plunged following a day of red in both the Asia-Pacific and European indexes. On the other hand, the U.S. dollar and government bonds surged on haven-buying.

At the core of Monday's sell-off was a liquidity crisis at Chinese property developer Evergrande. The world’s most indebted property developer faces obligations of more than $300 billion to creditors. That also includes a critical interest payment deadline on its offshore bonds, arriving on Sept. 23.

DW noted that if the Evergrande topples, it could bring many banks down with it, same as the Lehman brothers did during the 2008's housing bubble crisis in the United States.

Although Ether does not trade in sync with global markets, its 30-day correlation with Bitcoin, the leading digital asset exposed to macroeconomic fundamentals, sits near 0.85. As a result, the altcoin appeared to have faced an indirect consequence to China's looming housing crisis.

Bearish pattern triggered

The latest bout of selling in the Ethereum market also triggered a classic bearish pattern, which has a 75% accuracy when it comes to hitting its downside targets.

Dubbed the "Double Top,' the pattern develops after the price rallies strongly, pulls back, rises again towards the previous peak, and corrects all over again — all while standing atop the so-called neckline support. Ultimately, the price falls below the neckline and targets levels located as deep as the distance between Double Top's peak and the neckline.

Ether appears to be halfway through while painting a Double Top pattern. The cryptocurrency's chart below shows that it topped near $4,385 on May 12, fell towards the neckline support of $1,984 and rose back to another sessional peak of $4,030 on Sept. 3.

*ETH/USD weekly price chart. Source: TradingView.com*

If the Double Top pattern flourishes, the ETH/USD rates could extend their ongoing selloff toward $1,984 for a potential breakdown move afterward. Nonetheless, it does not look feasible for ETH/USD to drop aggressively below the $1,984-neckline.

The level is also near the Ether's 50-week exponential moving average (EMA) (the velvet wave) currently at $2,118, offering another support layer to safeguard Ether's bullish bias. Earlier, the wave acted as an entry-level for bulls following sharper ETH/USD pullbacks.

At the same time, on a daily timeframe, the next support line for Ether appears near its 200-day EMA (the orange wave) at $2,536. Thus, a sharp pullback from the said level could negate the Double Top setup.

*ETH/USD daily price chart featuring 200-day EMA support. Source: TradingView.com*

Fundamentals

Ether continues to eye adoption against Ethereum's role in backing the booming decentralized finance (DeFi) and nonfungible token (NFT) industry. In the recent SALT conference, Cathie Wood, the CEO of Ark Invest, also said that investors should allocate at least 40% of their crypto portfolios to Ether.

Ark Investment CEO @CathieDWood's confidence in Ethereum and Bitcoin is growing.

Projecting a 10x growth rate over the next five years, the firm’s crypto exposure is likely to be split: 60% BTC and 40% ETH. https://t.co/VQCZhVCD3m
— Cointelegraph (@Cointelegraph) September 15, 2021

Excerpts from Wood's statement:

“I’m fascinated with what’s going on in DeFi, which is collapsing the cost of the infrastructure for financial services in a way that I know that the traditional financial industry does not appreciate right now.”

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.

Ethereum eyes $6.5K bullish target as ETH price chart paints ‘Cup and Handle’

September 16, 2021 Coin Telegraph

<div>Ethereum eyes .5K bullish target as ETH price chart paints 'Cup and Handle'</div>

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The success rate for cup and handle patterns in forex and stock markets, on daily timeframes, are 65% and 68%, respectively, per a Harvard study.

Ethereum blockchain's native asset Ether (ETH) faces the prospect of exploding towards $6,500 in the coming sessions.

ETH looks like a cup and handle too. Thoughts?
— Raoul Pal (@RaoulGMI) September 15, 2021

The bullish analogy takes cues from a textbook technical pattern dubbed "Cup and Handle." In detail, a Cup and Handle structure develops after the price first rallies significantly to the upside and then corrects to carve out a rounding bottom, called the "cup."

The move follows a rebound towards the prior high and a failed breakout attempt above the said level. As a result, the price pulls back once again and grinds out a smaller rounding bottom, called the "handle."

Ultimately, the price returns to prior high for the second time and breaks out successfully, resulting in a move equal to the cup's depth.

So it seems the ETH/USD exchange rate has painted a cup and is now forming a handle, as shown in the chart below.

*ETH/USD daily chart featuring cup and handle formation. Source: TradingView.com*

The depth of the ETH/USD's cup is nearly $2,437. As a result, should the pair retest $4,112-resistance for a bullish breakout move, its prospect of rising by as much as $2,437 will increase. In doing so, Ether would eye a run-up towards $6,549.

A Harvard study shows that cup and handle patterns have a 65% and 68% success rate in forex and stock markets, respectively, on daily timeframe charts.

Institutional FOMO on

Ethereum's upside analogy appears against the backdrop of growing institutional interest.

In a report published on Sept. 7, Standard Chartered, a multinational banking giant headquartered in London, discussed Ether's economic use-case, adding that the cost to purchase one ETH could grow to $26,000-$35,000 in the future.

"The current transition to ETH 2.0 could transform ETH by increasing its functionality and scalability and reducing environmental concerns, although it could raise more complex security issues," the report stated.

"Timelines for ETH 2.0 rollout could slip, but in the near term, decreasing net supply — as ETH is staked for ETH 2.0 — should provide price cushion."

In an interview with CNBC, Cathie Wood, CEO of Ark Invest, that her firm would split its crypto investments into 60% Bitcoin and 40% Ethereum. The former AllianceBernstein executive envisioned a higher demand for ETH tokens in the wake of ongoing growth in Ethereum-backed decentralized finance (DeFi) and nonfungible token (NFT) craze.

"I'm fascinated with what's going on in DeFi, which is collapsing the cost of the infrastructure for financial services in a way that I know that the traditional financial industry does not appreciate right now," Wood told CNBC anchor Andrew Ross Sorkin at the Salt technology conference in New York.

"Our confidence in ethereum has gone up dramatically as we've seen the beginning of this transition from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake."

Rivalry risks

Meanwhile, Ethereum also faced criticism for its inability to resolve higher transaction fees and network congestion issues. That prompted emerging layer one blockchain rivals like Solana (SOL), Avalanche (AVAX), and Cardano (ADA) to eat up a portion of Ethereum's market hegemony.

It would take Ethereum another two years to become a fully functional proof-of-stake protocol, per its official roadmap. The transition consists of a three-step process. In the first, Ethereum has implemented the Beacon chain to introduce staking on a separate layer.

The next step scheduled sometime later in 2021 will see Ethereum's original chain merger with the Beacon chain. Meanwhile, Ethereum will introduce “shard chains” that expect to enable Ethereum to process more transactions in the final phase.

Uniswap (UNI) price jumps by 15% in DeFi, cryptocurrency market rebound

September 15, 2021 Coin Telegraph

ADAUSD

The jump in UNI/USD rates has quickly met with sellers at local top levels.

Uniswap (UNI) was among the best performers among the top-cap cryptocurrency tokens in the previous 24 hours, logging better gains than some top cryptocurrencies, namely Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), and Binance Coin (BNB).

On Sept. 15, the UNI/USD exchange rate jumped 13.26% to hit its seven-day high $25.68. Traders continued to bid higher on the pair entering Wednesday, pushing its value higher to $26.07 at one point in time, up more than 15% from the previous session's open of $22.66.

Market-wide recovery behind UNI gains?

A majority of Uniswap's gains in the previous 24 hours seems to have surfaced in the wake of a market-wide recovery.

For instance, the said timeframe witnessed Bitcoin, the benchmark cryptocurrency that enjoys heavy influence on the rest of the crypto tokens, climbed above $47,000 following a 4.85% upside move on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Ethereum saw its native asset ETH rallying toward $3,500 in a 4.57% price jump.

Elsewhere in the crypto market, Binance Coin, XRP, Dogecoin, Luna, and Chainlink also rose. In contrast, smart contracts platform Solana's native asset SOL fell 6.47% following a denial-of-service disruption on its network.

At the same time, Cardano (ADA), one of Solana's top rivals, dropped by more than 1%.

*The performance of the top 15 cryptocurrencies in the past 24 hours. Source: TradingView.com*

At first, the gains among the top tokens, including Uniswap, looked to have been helped by capital rotations out of SOL and ADA markets.

In detail, Solana's market cap surged by more than 400% quarter-to-date following its foray into the booming nonfungible token (NFT) sector, providing traders a decent opportunity to lock interim profits. Additionally, the network outage accelerated the profit-taking scenario.

Solana mainnet-beta is experiencing intermittent instability. This began approximately 45 minutes ago, and engineers are investigating the issue.
— Solana Status (@SolanaStatus) September 14, 2021

On the other hand, Cardano attracted speculation because of its Alonzo upgrade that made it a smart contracts platform for the first time since launch. In addition, it's 2,500% year-to-date performance gave traders adequate opportunities to "sell the news" and secure gains.

UNI holders are masters of 9.15M MIR tokens

Uniswap's superior performance in the previous 24 hours also took cues from speculation that holding UNI could grant them access to airdrop tokens.

In a recent note, Brendon Murray, content marketing manager at Boston-based blockchain analysis firm Flipside Crypto, cited Twitter user jr3225's research. The study cited many UNI holders failed to realize that they could claim 9.15 million of the synthetic asset platform Mirror Protocol's MIR tokens via a December 2020 airdrop.

In comparison, LUNA stakers could claim more free MIR tokens than UNI ones—MIR/USD has surged 200% this year.

*Total MIR claimed on the y-axis, airdrop-type on the x-axis. Source: @jr3225*

The report, published Tuesday, coincided with the UNI price pump.

Uniswap technical outlook

Uniswap's latest rally had it test a support confluence made up of falling trendline resistance and the 38.2% Fib line (~$26.093) of a Fibonacci retracement graph (drawn from a $42.89-swing high to $15.70-swing low).

*UNI/USD daily price chart. Source: TradingView.com*

Sellers took control near the confluence, prompting UNI/USD to correct by 4.59% to an intraday low of $24.50. Its next support target is—again—a confluence of 23.6% Fib line ($22.12) and the ascending trendline that overall constitutes a Rising Channel.

An interim bullish outlook entails UNI/USD breaking above $26.09 and step towards the next Fib levels ($29.30, $32.51, and so on) unless the pair reaches the Rising Channel's upper trendline near $42.89.

Meanwhile, a bearish setup could see UNI/USD break below $22.12 Fib line and the Channel support to target $15.70.

CryptoPunks floor price slips below 80 ETH as NFT trading volume deflates by 50%

September 14, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

The drop came in sync with the overall crypto market decline in recent sessions.

The minimum cost to buy a CryptoPunks nonfungible token (NFT) from secondary marketplaces dropped below 80 Ether (ETH) on Sept. 14.

Larva Labs reported that the so-called "CryptoPunk 1417," a pixelated avatar of one of 3840 women created by digital artists Matt Hall and John Watkinson, is listed for sale at 79.99 ETH (almost $266,168).

The floor price of CryptoPunks fell below 80 ETH. pic.twitter.com/aD3Cwbl0IK
— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) September 14, 2021

A quick look into the history of transactions involving #1417 showed that its owner sold it for as low as 0.9 ETH (~$159) in January 2020. The new possessors kept raising their ask price for the NFT in the later months. As of Aug. 31, its floor rates had topped near 118.99 ETH (~$407,165).

But no bids came for #1417, forcing the auctioneer to reduce the NFT's floor price to 93.99 ETH ($368,539) by Sept. 7. A flurry of bargains later, the owner listed the digital collectible for 79.99 ETH and received an offer for 70 ETH ($230,089).

*CryptoPunk 1417 bargain history. Source: Larvis Labs*

But the bidder later withdrew their offer, raising possibilities that the #1417's owner might drop their floor price further.

The price trajectory of one of the CryptoPunks' 10,000 NFT artworks came as a part of a recent decline in floor rates across the digital collectibles space. At one point this week, the average price floor for all NFTs had dropped to 0.37 ETH from the top of 1.02 ETH, as per Ethereum ecosystem tracker Dune Analytics.

*Custom NFT floor tracker. Source: Dune Analytics*

Nonetheless, on Sept. 14, the average price shot up to a new record high of 1.10 ETH. It is worth noting that price floors could rise due to new NFT projects debuting with higher ask rates. But for top players in the space, such as CryptoPunks, the price floor remained lower.

Meanwhile, many of the high-priced CryptoPunks NFT sales in the past seven days also occurred. For instance, on Sept. 12, Zombie "CryptoPunk 8857" received a 2,000 ETH bid worth $6.62 million. Similarly, last week, a Clown-nosed "CryptoPunk 5169" got sold for 205 ETH (around $755,935).

*Top five NFT collectibles sales in the past seven days. Source: CryptoSlam*

Payment processing giant Visa also bought a CryptoPunk for nearly $150,000 in Ether.

NFT sales volumes plunge

At the same time, the high-priced CryptoPunk purchases have done little in maintaining its record-breaking August sales volumes.

In detail, the NFT marketplaces witnessed $86.55 million worth of transactions after peaking toward the end of August, all involving the sales of CryptoPunks avatars. The trend sustained further through the first two days of September, only to witness a sharp decline in the next sessions.

*CryptoPunks trade volume throughout its history. Source: CryptoSlam*

CryptoSlam reported a 53.3% decline in the CryptoPunks sales volumes in the past seven days via only 66 transactions involving 55 buyers. Similarly, other top NFT projects, including Axie Infinity, Art Blocks, and Bored Ape Yacht Club, also reported double-digit percentage drops.

Nonfungible reported similar drops in trading volumes across leading NFT marketplaces after Aug. 29. On that day, the NFT projects had raked in $1.02 billion. But as of Sept. 14, the sales had dropped to $151.31 million.

*NFT sales volumes. Source: Nonfungible*

Meanwhile, the number of active NFT wallets fell from 59,255 to 21,908 in the same period. Additionally, the total number of NFT sales dropped to 36,014 from 138,109, signaling a declining interest in the digital collectibles space.

The drop largely matched steps with bearish price moves across the cryptocurrency market last week as top coins Bitcoin and Ethereum suffered a large correction. On the whole, the crypto market cap declined by 15.52% after topping out near $2.43 trillion on Sept. 7.

Solana rally mimicking Ethereum? Why a $500 SOL price target could be ‘conservative’

September 9, 2021 Coin Telegraph

<div>Solana rally mimicking Ethereum? Why a 0 SOL price target could be 'conservative'</div>

ADAUSD

The sixth-largest cryptocurrency by market cap remains one of the best performers despite the overall crypto market losing more than $200 billion.

A high-flying Solana (SOL) refused to land even in the face of a brutal sell-off in the cryptocurrency market on Tuesday. Two days later, the price of SOL rebounded to another new all-time high.

The SOL/USD exchange rate averted a big pullback over the previous 48 hours and reached $217 for the first time in history.

The pair's ability to sustain bearish pressure underscored investors' growing interest in Solana's blockchain as an emerging rival to Ethereum, a public ledger currently leading the decentralized finance (DeFi) and nonfungible token (NFT) sector boom.

*SOL/USD daily price chart. Source: TradingView.com*

"The SOL outperformance in the market recently is more or less the continuation of its growth run in recent times," said Peter Kozyakov, co-founder and CEO at payment service firm Mercuryo.

"With more than two different NFT project launches and minting going on in the ecosystem per day, there is an unending demand for SOL from retail buyers. As a result, it has kept the price up more than 50% this week despite a market-wide crash."

In detail, Solana hosted the launch of the NFT Degenerate Ape Academy on Aug. 15, which featured a collection of 10,000 cartoon apes. They were sold out in just 8 minutes and involved 96,000 SOL or about $5.9 million.

Solana continued its foray into the NFT space by enabling an FTX-backed digital collectibles marketplace earlier this week. FTX, a crypto derivatives platform, revealed that their new NFT venture would enable NFT creators and owners to trade their digital arts cross-chain using Solana and Ethereum.

Solana beats top rivals

The cryptocurrency market wiped more than $200 billion off its valuation following a sudden sell-off Tuesday. The leading digital asset by market cap, Bitcoin (BTC), saw its prices plunge from over $52,000 to almost $42,000 within minutes, which analysts largely blame on cascading long liquidations.

Alternative cryptocurrencies (altcoins), which more or less tail the Bitcoin trend, dropped in tandem, with the second-largest Ether plunging by up to 23.41% and its runner-up—another smart contract rival—Cardano (ADA) dropping by 30.89%.

*Solana's top rivals Ethereum and Cardano price performance. Source: TradingView.com*

However, Solana was an exception in the sea of red. While the SOL/USD wobbled violently between gains and losses, it eventually closed the day 5.45% higher and followed it with extended upside moves in the sessions ahead.

The pair has surged almost 890% after bottoming out on July 20 at $21.96. At the same time, the total value locked inside Solana-based DeFi projects has crossed $7.81 billion, per data provided by SolanaProject.com.

Greg Waisman, co-founder, and chief operating officer at Mercuryo, told Cointelegraph that he anticipates SOL to reach $500 by the end of 2021. He noted:

"Solana’s growth runs appear to be mimicking that of Ethereum (ETH) and Binance Coin (BNB), and the $500 projection may turn out to be a conservative one for the coin."

Ethereum price breaks $3,500 and hits 3-month highs against Bitcoin

September 1, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Ethereum price breaks ,500 and hits 3-month highs against Bitcoin

ADAUSD

The second-largest cryptocurrency reaches its best levels against Bitcoin and the dollar in more than three months.

Ethereum's native asset Ether (ETH) has extended its rally on Sep. 1 to log multi-month highs against Bitcoin (BTC) and the United States dollar (USD).

The ETH/BTC exchange rate rose 3.13% to hit 0.07475 for the first time since June 9. Meanwhile, bids for ETH/USD climbed 3.4% to $3,546, the highest since May 18, showcasing a renewed upside sentiment in the second-largest cryptocurrency market after it consolidated sideways for more than three weeks.

*ETH/USD and ETH/BTC daily price chart. Source: TradingView.com*

Ether's price jump appeared despite a wobbling price behavior across the cryptocurrency market. For instance, Bitcoin prices remained stuck around $47,000 while eyeing a clear breakout move above their psychological resistance level of $50,000.

Similarly, Ethereum's top rival Cardano (ADA) also consolidated sideways following its 100%-plus price rally in August, while its market dominance fell from 4.54% between Aug. 8 to 4.26% at the time of writing.

*Cardano prices versus its market dominance against all the cryptocurrencies. Source: TradingView.com*

The same period witnessed Ethereum's market dominance rising from 18.17% to 19.65%, hinting that Ether attracted capital out of assets with interim overstretched valuations.

Hodling detected

Ethereum's run up above $3,500 coincides with a decline in ETH reserves across all exchanges.

Blockchain analytics firm CryptoQuant reported that the amount of Ether held in exchange wallets has declined from 19.45 million on Aug. 18 to 18.75 million today.

However, analysts perceive falling reserves as bullish, arguing that traders primarily withdraw their coins from exchanges because they choose to hold them instead of selling them for other assets.

*Ethereum balance across exchanges drop as ETH/USD rise. Source: CryptoQuant*

Additionally, more upside cues for Ether prices have emerged due to supply squeeze prospects.

CryptoQuant data shows that more than 6% of Ether's supply now stands locked inside the Ethereum 2.0 smart contract, i.e., about 7.28 million ETH, worth $25.77 billion at current exchange rates.

*Total value staked in Ethereum 2.0 smart contract exceeds $25 billion. Source: CryptoQuant*

Additionally, a new Ethereum network update, dubbed "London Hard Fork," has introduced a protocol that burns a fraction of its gas fees. Since its introduction on Aug. 5, the so-called EIP-1559 has removed 156,986 ETH worth over $555 million out of supply, per data provided by WatchTheBurn.com.

Demand prospects against supply squeeze

Ether has already climbed over 380% in 2021, its gains boosted by the emerging decentralized finance (DeFi) and nonfungible token (NFT) sector. In comparison, Bitcoin has gained 62% year-to-date against the dollar.

Payal Shah, director of equity and cryptocurrency product development at CME Group, noted that Ethereum is equivalent to DeFi, a sector that enables users to trade, as well as borrow and lend directly assets to one another without involving central authorities like banks.

"Ethereum hosts more than 200,000 ERC tokens, some of which are part of the top 100 largest cryptocurrencies," Shah wrote in a note published mid-August.

"Together, with the accessibility of DeFi and the draw of better interest rates, more and more retail consumers will likely turn to the DeFi space."

Data tracker Dapp Radar reports that the total value locked inside Ethereum-backed DeFi protocols has crossed $100 billion.

Cardano rivalry

But Ethereum is racing against a long list of rivals as it grapples with network congestion and higher fees issues. For instance, Cardano employs a dual-layer design to perform computations and settlements separately and thus solve the network congestion issues.

Additionally, Cardano consumes almost no energy due to its PoS system. Ethereum expects to switch fully to proof-of-stake by 2022-2023, which gives Cardano and similar Ethereum rivals a lot of room to grow.

But Ethereum has a first-mover advantage in the blockchain space, compared to Cardano, which has very few decentralized applications to show.

"Ethereum is the place to be, already boasting thousands of DApps," said investment analysts at the Value Trend, adding that:

It simply makes more commercial sense, at the moment, to build an app on Ethereum.

Ethereum price poised for 40% rally vs. Bitcoin after breaking out of four-month range

August 31, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Bitcoin

The Ethereum blockchain native asset broke its downward sloping resistance trendline to the upside, triggering a textbook bullish outlook.

Ethereum's native token Ether (ETH) faces the prospect of logging a 40% price rally against its top rival Bitcoin (BTC), per a classic technical pattern.

Dubbed Symmetrical Triangle, the structure develops after the price forms a series of higher lows and lower highs. Doing so results in a convergence of two trendlines with a degree of symmetry, which appears like a Triangle.

Analysts treat Symmetrical Triangles as trend continuation indicators, i.e., they usually send prices in the direction of their previous trend following a clear breakout. As a result, the ongoing ETH/BTC price boom expects to undergo an upside continuation after having fluctuating inside a similar Triangle structure for the last four months.

*ETH/BTC weekly chart featuring a Symmetrical Triangle setup. Source: TradingView.com*

Part of the reason is Ether's attempt to break above its Triangle consolidation setup, after rising seven weeks in a row by 179%. If it does, the ETH/BTC exchange rate could rise by as much as the Triangle's maximum height (~0.025 BTC) from the point of its breakout (~0.069 BTC).

That puts the pair's profit target near 0.094 BTC, about 40% above 0.069 BTC.

Ether's outperformance

Ether's bullish outlook against Bitcoin emerges as it outperforms the benchmark cryptocurrency in dollar terms on an intraday basis.

On Tuesday, the ETH/USD exchange rate rose 6.61% to $3,442, its highest level in three months. Comparatively, Bitcoin posted dwarfed gains, rising only 2.5% to $48,169, portraying a higher interim demand for Ether tokens among traders.

*ETH/USD versus BTC/USD daily chart. Source: TradingView.com*

Dmitry Mishunin, founder and CEO of smart contract audit firm HashEX, projected Ethereum and similar "smart contract-enabling blockchains" to keep outperforming Bitcoin in the long run, citing their superior utility.

"The duo of Cardano and Ethereum has the propensity to harbor countless innovative projects," Mishunin said, adding that Ethereum has the potential to flip Bitcoin in the long run.

"Bitcoin only relies on its capped supply and the first-mover advantage, a trend many investors are beginning to substitute for unique technology that can drive a blockchain-dominated future."

Jon Ovadia, founder, and CEO of crypto exchange Ovex, also said that Ethereum has better fundamentals than Bitcoin at this moment, largely due to its recent network update that aimed to add deflationary pressure to Ether through a fee-burning mechanism.

Thus far, about 146,878.7 ETH (worth approximately $492.3 million) have been burnt from the total circulating supply," Ovadia said, adding that:

"The potential for a more superior Proof-of-Stake infrastructure through the highly anticipated launch of Ethereum 2.0 will also make the blockchain more usable, thus driving the coin’s utility and its price growth."

Bitcoin outlook, meanwhile

So far into 2021, Ether has grossly outperformed Bitcoin due to its incremental adoption in the booming decentralized finance and nonfungible token industries. As it stands on Tuesday, the year-to-date profits for Ether are 373% versus Bitcoin's 63.55%.

Nevertheless, Mike McGlone, the senior commodity strategist at Bloomberg Intelligence, said Bitcoin would eventually catch up to Ethereum's gains, thus leading to $100,000 by the end of 2021, more than double where it is trading at the time of writing.

Fundstrat Global Advisors’ Tom Lee also envisioned a six-figure bid for Bitcoin as long as it stays above its average price over the last 200 days — a long-term momentum measure.

Ethereum supply shock: Exchange ETH reserves continue to fall after a 26% drop in 2021

August 25, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

To date, 92,595 ETH have been burned following Ethereum's London hard fork upgrade.

The amount of Ether (ETH) held by all cryptocurrency exchanges has declined dramatically in the previous 12 months.

Blockchain analytics firm CryptoQuant reported that Ethereum reserves on trading platforms dropped 26.29 million ETH to 19.22 million ETH year-on-year (YoY), indicating that traders' preference to hold their tokens increased.

At least the Ether price performance in the same period indicates the same. Between August 25, 2020, and press time, the ETH/USD exchange rate exploded by a little over 730%— from $407 to $3,190, signaling an erratic inverse correlation between the Ethereum token prices and its reserves across all exchanges.

*Ethereum reserves versus ETH/USD price performance YoY. Source: CryptoQuant*

In detail, traders typically prefer to keep their crypto assets on exchange wallets when they wish to trade them in the near term. Otherwise, they move those assets to private wallets to control their own keys, a strategy that stems from the fears of losing funds to hacks and similar security breaches at crypto exchanges.

Ether deposits plunge

Another on-chain indicator, built by CoinMetrics to track the total number of Ether deposits to exchanges, also alerted holding sentiment among Ethereum traders. It noted that traders' ETH deposits across all the trading platforms had plunged 21.11% YoY, from 413,772 ETH to 326,408.

*Ethereum deposits on exchanges. Source:* *CoinMetrics, Messari*

But in the last 30 days, the ETH deposits have dropped dramatically by 47.81%, signaling that many investors are expecting higher prices in the long term.

Meanwhile, the sum count of unique addresses holding any amount of Ether in the last 30 days has jumped 1.67%, coinciding with a 42% ETH/USD rally in the same period. On a YoY timeframe, the unique address count has jumped 30.87%.

*Ethereum address count. Source: CoinMetrics, Messari*

Supply Squeeze

The Ether holding sentiment has picked momentum in days leading up to and after a landmark Ethereum network upgrade on August 5, 2021. Dubbed as the London Hard Fork, the software update implemented a proposal called EIP-1559 that enabled gas fee burning on the Ethereum network.

This has added deflationary pressure as a result. In the first 20 days after EIP-1559 went live, the network has burned almost 92,595 ETH worth around $295.85 million, according to WatchTheBurn.com.

More Ether went out of active supply as Ethereum invited participants to deposit 32 ETH to become validator on its upcoming proof-of-stake blockchain. Beacon Chain reports that the so-called Ethereum 2.0 smart contract has attracted a little over 6.9 million ETH worth around $22 billion.

*Staked Ether in Ethereum 2.0 smart contract. Source: BeconCha.in*

Additionally, demand for Ether continues to grow owing to Ethereum's expanding ecosystem, containing projects from the booming decentralized finance (DeFi) and nonfungible token sectors.

Last week, Lyn Alden, the founder Lyn Alden Investment Strategy, called the London upgrade a "tactically bullish" event, noting that it could easily push ETH/USD rates to over $5,000.

Ethereum could pave way for $100,000 Bitcoin, Bloomberg analyst asserts

August 9, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Bitcoin

"If Bitcoin were to catch up to Ethereum's performance this year, the No. 1 crypto's price would approach $100,000," believes Mike McGlone, senior commodity strategist at Bloomberg Intelligence.

Ether (ETH) has outperformed Bitcoin (BTC) in terms of year-to-date market performance, rising more than 320% against BTC's 54% returns. But, according to Bloomberg Intelligence senior commodity strategist Mike McGlone, Bitcoin would soon catch up to Ether's gains, which might even push its per-unit price to $100,000.

"If Bitcoin were to catch up to Ethereum's performance this year, the No. 1 crypto's price would approach $100,000," the analyst tweeted on Aug. 9 as BTC price broke above $46,000.

*Bitcoin performance vs Ethereum performance (in 2021). Source: Bloomberg Intelligence*

While McGlone did not dwell on the factors that would have Bitcoin match Ethereum's yearly gains, his earlier report on cryptocurrencies cited a few catalysts that could propel the benchmark crypto's prices to the six-figure club. The report notes:

"About 80% of Bitcoin and Ethereum, the majority of the Bloomberg Galaxy Crypto Index (BGCI) performance comes from the broader perception of the first-born crypto as a global digital-reserve asset, plus accelerating digitization of fintech and the monetary system."

Trillions of dollars waiting on the sidelines

Bitcoin backers believe it can compete with the U.S. dollar to become a global reserve asset. A big reason is the cryptocurrency's fixed supply cap that, to proponents, make it better sound money than the greenback (the Federal Reserve printed $3.1 trillion in 2020 alone).

As a result, Bitcoin closed last year 260% higher, reflecting that investors treated it as a tool against dollar-led inflation.

*Bitcoin price performance through the recent years. Source: TradingView.com*

In its survey earlier in 2021, Goldman Sachs also noted the pent-up demand for Bitcoin among institutional investors, including pension funds, global sovereign wealth funds, and foundations. Nonetheless, even as they had trillions of dollars in reserves, a lack of clear crypto regulations kept accredited investors from putting those funds in the Bitcoin market.

Analysts at Autonomous Capital Management stated that a regulated Bitcoin exchange-traded fund would speed up Bitcoin adoption among institutions. In addition, they stated that while investors treat Bitcoin as a highly volatile asset, its lack of correlation to traditional risk factors will be like music to their ears.

The Autonomous analysts added:

"If we were to assume that Bitcoin gets the same weighting as the current gold weighting in investor’s portfolios, its price would be 2.8x times higher or roughly $112,000."

Ethereum rivalry

Despite its adoption prospects on Wall Street, Bitcoin's dominance has fallen severely after topping out at around 73% in December 2020. It now stands at 47.17%, reflecting that traders have shifted around their investments to other digital assets.

Ethereum, in particular, has become the biggest benefactor of the falling Bitcoin dominance index. Its own dominance in the cryptocurrency industry has climbed from 10.06% in December 2020 to 20.05% at the time of writing.

*Ethereum dominance index has almost doubled in 2021. Source: TradingView.com*

Part of the reason behind Ether's rising dominance has originated from the explosion of non-fungible tokens (NFT), which are digital files whose originality and scarcity can be validated by a public ledger.

In addition, a boom in the decentralized finance space, consisting of lending, borrowing, and other financial services built atop the Ethereum blockchain, has pushed the adoption of Ether among crypto masses.

Ethereum developers are also taking steps to scale the blockchain. On Aug. 5, Ethereum updated its software with a so-called London hard fork with an aim to become a full-fledged Proof-of-Stake protocol in the future.

The update also added deflationary pressures on the supply, with an improvement proposal EIP-1559 bringing a fee reduction feature. On the first day alone, EIP-1559 enabled the elimination of $2 million worth of Ether tokens.

As of Monday, the feature burned about $5.5 million worth of ETH, as per data fetched by the website Ultrasound Money.

McGlone noted that Ethereum's past performance indicates possibilities that it could surpass Bitcoin in terms of market cap by 2022 or 2023. The analyst maintained his $100,000 price target for Bitcoin, nonetheless.

*Ethereum's market cap projected to match Bitcoin's by 2023 tops. Source: Bloomberg Intelligence*

"Though we see Bitcoin on that path, there appears little can stop the process of Ethereum flippening," he said.

To date, Ethereum has surpassed Bitcoin in terms of network transactions and total transaction fees, data from Blockchain Center shows.

3 reasons why Ethereum can hit $3K in the short term despite overvaluation risks

August 2, 2021 Coin Telegraph

3 reasons why Ethereum can hit K in the short term despite overvaluation risks

Coin Telegraph

Ether risks bearish exposure as ETH’s price rises against falling volumes, but three crucial on-chain indicators suggest a dissenting scenario.

Ethereum’s native asset, Ether (ETH), dropped after reclaiming its two-month high in the previous session, suggesting that its recent bullish rally was nearing exhaustion.

In detail, the ETH/USD pair topped out at $2,699 on Sunday for the first time since June 7. The pair’s peak level also pushed its relative strength index (RSI), a momentum-gauging indicator, above 70 — a mark that analysts consider overbought.

Seemingly, traders with short-term risk setups sold the Ether top to secure interim profits, leading up to a modest downside correction.

*Ether eyes a run-up toward $3.25K based on a Falling Wedge breakout setup. Source: TradingView*

On Monday, Ether prices rose 1.81% to $2,600 to offset the Sunday sell-off risks.

The upswing indicated that traders could still place higher bids for the cryptocurrency, especially in the days leading up to the Ethereum’s London hard fork upgrade that would — for the first time — bring deflationary features to the project’s economy via a new base-fee burning mechanism.

Greg Waisman, co-founder and chief operation officer of payment network Mercuryo, noted that Ether’s prices could easily cross above $3,000 after the hard fork, given it would bring a “more flexible and cheaper fee structure” to the Ethereum network, boosting adoption. The analyst told Cointelegraph:

“The hype buildup with respect to the forthcoming London hard fork is not reflective of the current price trend. [...] Ethereum is currently seeing a retracement; it confirms that the sellers are deliberately lowering the price for a post-upgrade price pump.”

#Ethereum has notched a 12-day winning streak, the longest ever

The IOMAP indicator reveals that $ETH is sitting on strong support while facing the last 2 key levels of on-chain resistance on its path to $3k once again

Between $2,598 and $2,753, 1.19m addresses bought 2.03m ETH pic.twitter.com/KAP3y0V94i
— IntoTheBlock (@intotheblock) August 2, 2021

That bullish trio

At least three on-chain indicators tracking Ether flows in and out of dedicated addresses foresee an extending upside setup.

Spotted on CryptoQuant, the three metrics involved tracking Ether reserves across all exchanges and their outflow from trading platforms, as well as the volume of ETH tokens being deposited to Ethereum 2.0 smart contract.

The CryptoQuant data showed that the total Ether reserves on exchanges declined, indicating that fewer traders are interested in exchanging ETH for other assets. Meanwhile, the ETH outflow from those exchanges spiked, illustrating traders’ intention to hold their Ether around the London hard fork event.

*Ether reserves and netflow from crypto exchanges. Source: CryptoQuant*

Working together with the exchange data, the third on-chain indicator showed a surge in ETH deposits to its smart contract.

In detail, users can stake 32 ETH into Ethereum 2.0 smart contracts to become validators on its proof-of-stake blockchain. In doing so, they can expect to received rewards for batching transactions into a new Ethereum block or checking the work of other validators to keep the chain running securely.

*The number of unique 32 ETH depositors crosses 4,000. Source: CryptoQuant*

Analysts see the event as bullish because it removes the active Ether supply from circulation against a potentially rising demand.

“The increasing Ethereum 2.0 deposits show a big trust in the future potentials of the Ethereum blockchain, which stirs the scarcity of its native token Ether,” Waisman explained. “The situation may impact positively on the coin’s price.”

“With these positive fundamentals, a return back to the previous all-time high of $4,360 in the long term will be a mild ambition price target for Ether.”

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