Last time we looked, Ethereum (ETH) was testing $3000.
Today, it’s been testing $3,380.
“Ethereum settled above the $3,300 resistance and climbed further higher,” writes Aayush Jindal at NewsBTC. “ETH price even traded above $3,350, but it failed to clear $3,380. Recently, there was a downside correction below $3,350, similar to Bitcoin. There was a break below the 23.6% Fib retracement level of the upward move from the $3,130 swing low to $3,380 high. It is now trading above $3,250 and the 100 hourly simple moving average.”
In addition to technicals, there are some broader market reasons that bulls might be tempted to think that ETH is going higher long-term. Part of the appeal around the cryptocurrency these days is Ethereum’s build and handling of smart contract technologies.
Ethereum builds on (Bitcoin’s innovations),” write spokespersons at Ethereum.org. “Like Bitcoin, the rules can’t change on you and everyone has access. But it also makes this digital money programmable, using smart contracts, so you can go beyond storing and sending value.”
With so much of decentralized finance contemplating blockchain technologies that can hold smart contract functionality, Ethereum is a centerpiece of what tomorrow’s defi world may look like.
“To be clear, this is much bigger than financial technology or fintech,” writes Alex Tapscott at Financial Post of the trend toward smart contracts and defi. “Most fintech innovation is digital wallpaper — a sleek user interface that conceals the old system beneath. DeFi is a new financial architecture. In fewer than two years, many of these protocols — they aren’t ‘startups’ in the traditional sense — are competing with or eclipsing many fintech darlings. Banking incumbents are surely next.”
What will all of this mean for the ETH ecosystem and its big players, for instance, the Consensys group that has pioneered advances in ETH blockchain use? Keep an eye on the runner-up cryptocurrency as we head into yet another year of rapid innovation in crypto and beyond.