ETH Rallies Alongside Bitcoin
The crypto community is absolutely euphoric. Both Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH), two of the largest cryptocurrencies, have been rallying over the past few days. Over the past day, according to Coin Market Cap, Ethereum is up 5.5%, pushing $309 for the first time in over ten months.
Bitcoin has followed suit, posting an even more impressive 7.5% gain as it looks to find a short-term foothold around $10,600.
Interestingly, many large and small cap cryptocurrencies have slightly underperformed these two market leaders. Litecoin, Binance Coin, Stellar Lumens, Bitfinex’s LEO, and Cosmos are among the top digital assets that are not performing well against Bitcoin and Ethereum. This, according to analyst Benjamin Blunts, who called the $3,500 Bitcoin bottom, is a sign that the closure of Binance in the United States has begun to force American traders to siphon their capital into BTC instead of “s**tcoins”.
The Ethereum Latest
So, what’s behind this move exactly? Well, let’s take a look at recent fundamental events for the digital asset and its respective blockchain.
- Ethereum Devs Schedule 2.0 Launch to January 3rd, 2020, Bitcoin’s 11th Anniversary: In a recent Ethereum core developers call, researcher Justin Drake, a prominent figure in the cryptocurrency’s community, revealed that phase zero of Serenity (Ethereum 2.0) is finally being confirmed spec-wise. Phase zero is the activation of the so-called Beacon Chain, which will bring basic Proof of Stake features to the blockchain. With this, developers confirmed that they intend to launch this iteration of the project by early-2020, potentially on January 3rd, which will be the 11th anniversary of Bitcoin.
- Grayscale Releases Ethereum Trust to Public Markets: Per a press release shared with this outlet, Grayscale, the investment fund subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, has just released its second publicly-tradable product — the Ethereum Trust (ETHE). Like its Bitcoin Trust, which owns over 1% of all BTC in circulation (and that will ever be mined), this new financial product is an “open-ended trust” that is backed by its namesake: Ethereum. The product, per a previous release, allows investors to gain “exposure to the price movement of ETH through a traditional investment vehicle without the challenges of buying, storing, and safekeeping”.
Although few have price targets for this move, there are signs that Ethereum is still ready to surge even higher.
As reported by this outlet previously, Ethereum’s one-day chart Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) recently saw a bullish crossover. This marks the end of a 17-day bear period for Ethereum as defined by the MACD. The last time that a bullish MACD cross was seen on ETH’s daily chart, the asset gained 64%.
Simultaneously, the same chart experienced its ten-day moving average cross above the 20-day moving average, meaning that bulls are in control of the cryptocurrency.
But most importantly, Ethereum is still lagging behind Bitcoin in this cycle, in that it remains down over 75% from its all-time highs while BTC is down a relatively mere 47%. As Level’s Josh Rager points out, for ETH to catch up to its orange peer, it will have to move past $750.
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