ether price - Pwim.Net

Ethereum Continues to Grow in Use and Price in 2020, But Why?

The Ethereum blockchain has been a platform enabling new tokens’ initial life in cryptocurrency. Many developers use Ethereum as the go-to chain to create their business and tokenonomy (Token economy) before launching into the markets on exchanges and other services.

Already in 2020, the price has seen significant increases, rising from $120 to over $225 in under two months. But is there any reason why?

Coingecko: Ethereum Price from December 2019 — Feb 2020

In 2019, Ethereum decentralized apps (Dapps) showed huge advancements in popular segments including gaming and sports.

Following 2019’s growth, wallet holders have seen huge further increases during the start of 2020, with over 80% of new daily active wallets in use from Dapps as well as games and marketplace users jumping up a huge 163%.

Games are the most popular category on Ethereum’s decentralized marketplace, with the segment seeing a 7% increase in titles and new launches over the past months for players to enjoy.

The continued increase and interest in gaming alone is a huge reason why Ethereum continues to expand and attract new users. This could certainly be seen as to why the price has also seen steady rises. In January 2020 we can conclude that after a 7% increase so soon in the year, Ethereum is showing signs of real promise.

If Ethereum can continue to dominate gaming spaces and build on its marketplace, fighting off other platforms in the market, then 2020 could be a significant year for the cryptocurrency. Gaming, sports, and decentralized finance will be the driving factor as well as how the latest updates to the chain affect performance. The timing comes when the long-awaited Constantinople update will finally take place as well, creating quite the momentum for blockchain’s largest and robust platform.

Image via Shutterstock

Ethereum Price Yearly Trend Suggests Bull Run Ahead, ETH Deposits Doubled in the Last 20 Days

Ethereum has retraced slightly in the past 24 hours, dropping over 1.4%, and is currently trading at $583 at press time. Although Bitcoin’s price has been able to gain bullish momentum in the past week, driving its price above $19,000 and stabilizing above it, Ethereum has yet to push past its critical $600 level.

Since Ethereum 2.0 Beacon Chain has been launched, Ethereum has been struggling to maintain its price above $600, which the cryptocurrency ultimately has seen dips following. Ethereum 2.0 Phase 0 was launched on Dec. 1, and currently, the total value staked on the blockchain has crossed 1,500,000 ETH.

Ethereum has seen a record of ETH deposited into its deposit contract ahead of its launch, which was what made the launch of the Beacon Chain possible. Many investors were bullish on ETH ahead of its launch, when an enormous amount of ETH was deposited.

Prior to the launch of the Beacon Chain, Ethereum was trading at a high of $632, however, Ether’s price plunged soon after by 9 percent, trading at lows of $571. Ethereum’s transition to proof-of-stake will allow the blockchain to see upgrades including sharding, which would improve scalability. The Ether currently staked would likely be locked up until Phase 1.5 of Ethereum 2.0, which is scheduled for late 2021 to early 2022.

Cryptocurrency analytics firm Glassnode recently noted that the total value staked on Ethreum has reached over 1.5 million ETH, and that deposits have been fairly constant over the past few weeks. Glassnode explained:

“The total value staked in the #Ethereum 2.0 deposit contract just crossed 1,500,000 ETH. Deposits have been fairly constant over the past weeks – the amount of ETH in the contract has doubled in the last 20 days.”

As ETH deposits are steadily increasing, analysts are bullish on ETH’s price as Bitcoin has been attempting to hit a new all-time high. An altcoin analyst recently noted that Ethereum has started its run every December in the past three years, with at least over 100 percent in return on investment (ROI) in the following months.

The analyst explained:

“$ETH has started its run every December the last 3 years with at least 100%+ ROI over the following months. What makes you think this year will be any different? #Ethereum to $1000+ within the next few months IMO.”

Ethereum Has Broken Its Resistance Level of $1,682 as EIP 1559 Update Anticipated – What's Next?

Ethereum has announced that EIP 1559 will be a feature that will soon be brought to the blockchain network.

EIP 1559 will be a major transformation for the network, as it will significantly decrease the amount of outstanding transaction fees users will have to pay to use the Ethereum network. With the reduced supply in Ether, this will lead to increased prices for the cryptocurrency, as demand rises.

EIP 1559 is to be implemented sometime in July or August. Instead of an approximate price for transacting on Ethereum, network users will be given a base fee. The base transaction fee will be burned on the network, which means that Ethereum’s supply will decrease and Ethereum’s demand will go up due to scarcity and demand.

Upon the announcement that EIP 1559 proposal has been approved, Ethereum’s price on the market also benefitted and surged. Will Ethereum retest its all-time high of $2040 in the short-term?

Ethereum (ETH) Price Analysis

Source: ETH/USD 4-Hour via TradingView

Judging from the four-hour candlestick chart, the price of Ethereum (ETH) has begun to rise, breaking through the resistance levels of $1,500 and $1,600 successfully, and a new bull run has occurred. Yesterday, at 8 pm on March 7, a long green candlestick was formed and it successfully broke through the strong resistance level of $1,682. If the bulls can continue to control the market and stabilize the price above the $1,682 resistance level, ETH’s price may continue to rise to $1,800 in the short term. If it manages to surge higher and break the $1,800 mark, then ETH/USD may retest the all-time high of $2,040.

At the time of writing, ETH is trading at $1724.12, which is much higher than the 9-day Moving Average of $1,683.36 as well as above the psychological barrier of $1,700.

From technical analysis, Ether has formed an inverse head and shoulders pattern on the 4-hour chart. The left shoulder is about $1,443 and the inverted head is about $1,319. The right shoulder is approximately at the level of $1,475, slightly higher than the left shoulder.

Although Ether has a good chance of overcoming its resistance level of $1682, the cryptocurrency might face critical headwind in the near future, with selling pressure from the bears increasing. From today’s graph, the bears are trying hard to push ETH’s price below the critical level of $1682.

However, it is worth noting that the breakthrough of the inverted head and shoulders pattern is not always smooth. In the short term, before an uptrend is to be expected of ETH/USD, the trading pair may likely fall below the pressure line before surging higher.

The first support level for Ether is therefore pinpointed at $1,682, which is also near the 9-day Moving Average. If the bulls fail to defend this level, the next support level will be a 20-day Exponential Moving Average of $1,628.

If there is a downward break below $1,628, Ether may plunge to lower depths and fall to the support level of $1,475 in the short term.

Tim Beiko announced Shapella upgrade

Tim Beiko, a key developer for Ethereum, has revealed that the next planned update for Shapella would take place on February 28. When epoch 56832 arrives, the Shapella network update will become operational on the Sepolia network.

The names Shanghai and Capella (Shapella) are now being considered for the forthcoming Ethereum hard split. On the execution layer client side, the fork is referred to by the name Shanghai, whereas on the consensus layer client side, the upgrade is referred to by the name Capella.

On the execution layer, some major Ethereum improvement proposal (EIP) enhancements include push withdrawals on the Beacon Chain and warm coinbase. Warm coinbase should not be confused with the cryptocurrency exchange. By using a new “system-level” operation type, the push withdrawals will make it possible for validators to withdraw funds from the Beacon Chain and send them to the Ethereum Virtual Machine. Warm Coinbase, on the other hand, has the potential to be a game-changer by lowering the network costs that builders must pay.

The piece of software known as Coinbase is what builders on the network use to be credited with newly issued coins. Each and every new transaction on the network is required to have many interactions with the Coinbase program. Because the program takes more time to “warm up,” the charge for the first engagement is higher than the fee for subsequent interactions, which decrease as the number of contacts increases. However, with the implementation of EIP-3651, the coinbase software will stay warm from the start, and users will be required to pay a lesser gas charge in order to access it.

The initial unique historical roots have been replaced by complete and partial withdrawals for validators, as well as independent state and block historical accumulators. These are some of the major modifications that have been made to the consensus layer.

The ability to make a partial withdrawal enables validators to continue verifying transactions while withdrawing ether (ETH) rewards in amounts greater than 32 ether. Validators have the option to entirely abandon the system, collect all 32 Ether and awards, and call it quits if they wish to make a full withdrawal.

The next update will provide validators the ability to transfer their staked Ether (stETH) from the Beacon Chain to the execution layer so that they may spend it. In addition, the update would bring about modifications to the execution and consensus layers, as well as the addition of new functionality; hence, it would be an essential upgrade after the Merge.

In order to take advantage of the Sepolia update, however, stakers and non-stakers who run nodes are need to bring their nodes up to date with the most current versions of the Ethereum client. The next phase would be the release of the Shanghai upgrade on the Ethereum Goerli test network, which is anticipated to begin in the month of March. This would be the following step after the deployment of the Sepolia upgrade.