Ether (ETH) is back to trading flat in the $1,550 area after seeing a sharp reversal lower from earlier session highs in the $1,630s.
The cryptocurrency’s sudden intra-day reversal comes after ETH/USD found strong resistance at its 21 and 50DMAs, though Ether is for now finding support above key long-term support around $1,550.
A bullish research report from Standard Chartered which forecasted a rise to a price of around $8,000 by 2026 has failed to lift sentiment.
Standard Chartered Bank’s head of Digital Assets Research Geoff Kendrick argued that Ethereum is already dominant in NFTs and DeFi, but should also become the dominant blockchain powering the fast-growing web3 gaming and tokenization industries, both of which should add “significant demand”.
“Importantly, this should provide ‘proof of concept’ examples in which real-world industries come on-chain to exploit the benefits of Ethereum over their existing setups,” Kendrick argued, adding “we expect significant developments on these fronts by 2025-26”.
Kendrick added that the bank could rally back towards $4,000 by the end of 2024, with the Bitcoin (BTC) halving helping to lift all boats in the crypto world.
Price Prediction – Will Ether (ETH) Break This Key Support Level?
Progress toward Standard Charters’ $8,000 might have to wait, as Ether threatens a break of key long-term support at $1,550.
A break of this level could open the door to a swift move back to the March 2023 lows under $1,400, meaning a potential near-term price drop of as much as 12%.
Risks are certainly tilted towards more downside.
Macro headwinds are high, with the Israel/Palestine war escalating and its impact on global oil markets (and global inflation) still unclear, while the latest US PPI numbers came out hotter than expected, raising fears about higher for longer interest rates in the US.
Meanwhile, Ether market conditions have been weak recently – Ether futures ETFs debuted in the US last week, but saw poor demand, while the Ethereum Foundation recently sold $2.7 million in tokens.
But a dip back towards the $1,300s would likely present a great opportunity for the longer-term bulls to add to their long positions, so those with spare powder and a willingness to secure a “bargain” on ETH should be ready to pounce.
Crypto Alternatives to Consider
With the near-term outlook for Ether potentially bearish, investors may want to diversify their crypto holdings.
For those looking for an even better probability of near-term gains, an alternative high-risk-high-reward investment strategy to consider is getting involved in crypto presales.
This is where investors buy the tokens of up-start crypto projects to help fund their development.
These tokens are nearly always sold cheaply, and there is a long history of presales delivering huge exponential gains to early investors.
Many of these projects have fantastic teams behind them and a great vision to deliver a revolutionary crypto application/platform.
If an investor can identify such projects, the risk/reward of their presale investment is very good.
The team at Cryptonews spends a lot of time combing through presale projects to help investors out.
Here is a list of 15 of what the project deems as the best crypto presales of 2023.
See the 15 Cryptocurrencies
Disclaimer: Crypto is a high-risk asset class. This article is provided for informational purposes and does not constitute investment advice. You could lose all of your capital.
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