Ethereum Weekly Forecast: ETH 2.0 launch will be a pivotal moment for Ethereum

 The cryptocurrency landscape is not in the best shape on Friday. Both the Asian sessions and the European sessions have been characterized by increased selling activities, especially for the major currencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Ripple. Bitcoin is struggling with the support turned resistance at $9,300 while Ripple is focused on taking down the hurdle at $0.19 in a bid to regain balance heading towards $0.20.

Related content: Cryptocurrency Market News: Bitcoin bears still trampling over the bulls

Ethereum market update

The largest altcoin has lost over 1.5% of its value on the day from $231.23 (opening value) to $227 (prevailing market value). On the upside, an intraday high has been reached at $231.24 (significantly lower than Thursday’s high close to $235. Ether is facing a bearish biased trend, which means the path of least resistance is downwards going into the weekend session. Less rapid price actions are, however, not anticipated in the short term due to low volatility being witnessed.

Related reading: Ethereum Price Forecast: ETH/USD slips under $230, will $225 hold?

Ethereum network overview: ETH addresses with over 0.1 ETH surge

Data by On-chain analysis platform, Glassnode, shows that the number of Ethereum addresses currently holding 0.1 or more ETH have surpassed the 3 million mark. There has been significant growth since January; an indication that investors are getting more bullish on Ethereum.

Transaction cost, referred to as gas in the Ethereum network have also recorded a massive surge this week. The fee has at some point surpassed that of Bitcoin (BTC). According to Ryan Watkins, an analyst at MessariCrypto:

The increase in gas usage indicates a continuous growth in the use of Ethereum’s platform, as measured by the number of transactions, as well as demand for block space, as measured via gas per transaction.

Six high-profile firms line up for early ETH 2.0 staking

According to ConsenSys, already six top firms have confirmed their interest in ETH 2.0 pilot staking project. The firms include Crypto.com, Binance, Trustology, Huobi wallet, Matrixport, and DARMA Capital. The pilot staking project will be executed using ConsenSys Codefi platform.

Ethereum 2.0 continues to attract interest from all corners of the industry. The protocol will transform the network in many ways including the migration to a proof-of-stake system, the introduction of sharding technology, the aforementioned staking among other key features. The CEO of DARMA Capital, James Slaza refers to the launch of ETH 2.0 as a “pivotal moment for both Ethereum and the Web 3.0 ecosystem.” In a statement mean to assure investors, Codefi Staking product lead, Tim Lowe said:

With ConsenSys Codefi, validator keys are held in a secure vault with online signing capability, and there will be multiple layers of gatekeepers validating transactions preventing unauthorized usage.

Ethereum miners start to hold

As speculation mount in regard to the launch of ETH 2.0, miners of the second largest cryptocurrency have started to hodl (hold for a long time). Data by Santiment, an analytics platform shows that miners have not sold more than 15,000 ETH mined in the last couple of weeks.

After a mild bag dump around the time ETH began to consolidate, miners have resumed accumulating for time being.

According to past data, whenever there is an increase in the collective balance of Ethereum, a price rally often follows. The Market and Social Media Director at Santiment, Brian Quinlivan says that the Ethereum network is growing at a wider scale.

Generally, [we can] see that a rising network growth leads to a rising price of any project over time, in most cases. On the flip side, declining network growth for a long enough stretch can usually indicate a future slumping price with the lack of newly created addresses constantly in-flowing the coin or token.

Ethereum weekly chart analysis

Ethereum price tested $225 support on Friday following a rejection at $235 on Thursday. Generally, the trend is in consolidation within a $20 range; where $240 is the range limit and $220 is the range support. Technical indicators such as the RSI and the MACD continue to shine light upon the sideways price action. In spite of the bearish pressure, buying activity is still present. Besides, the MACD is holding above the midline to confirm that bullish pressure has influence over the price to some extent.

It is apparent that Ethereum does not have high volumes to support gains towards $240 as well as $250. On the downside, in the coming days, support is anticipated at $225, $220, and $200. If declines continue under $200, the 100 SMA and the 50 SMA will come in handy to stop the bearish leg from causing more damage.

ETH/USD weekly chart