A New Reason to Consider High-Flying Ethereum Is Emerging
The cryptocurrency known as Ether, which transacts on the Ethereum blockchain, is the second-largest in the space after Bitcoin.
While Ether has been on a tear of its own of late, outperforming Bitcoin along the way, that run may not be over. In fact, it may be getting some assistance in the form of reduced Ether supply.
“Ethereum blockchain developers approved one of the biggest changes to the network since its inception in 2015, a shift that could spur even bigger gains in the price of its native cryptocurrency Ether,” reports Matthew Leising for Bloomberg.
Examining Ethereum
“The move will reduce the amount of outstanding Ether by destroying some of the tokens every time it’s used to fuel transactions on the world’s most-used blockchain,” according to Bloomberg. “Known as EIP 1559, the change solves a current problem: Ethereum users can only estimate how much Ether will be needed for transactions to be processed, a guessing game that has spawned sites such as ETH Gas Station to help people know how much to pay. EIP 1559, which will become part of an upgrade in July or August, will embed an average price into the network itself making the guessing game obsolete.”
Ethereum is an open-source, blockchain-based distributed computing platform that can support smart contract functionality.
That’s a complicated way of saying that Ethereum not only makes a cryptocurrency called Ether possible, but can also support the launch of new cryptocurrencies and make it possible to crowdsource funding for new projects.
The simplest way to think about Ethereum is to compare it to something you probably use every day: your mobile phone. If you have an Android or iOS phone, you have apps that can perform a wide variety of functions from ordering an Uber to mapping a route across town.
What gives Ethereum an edge against Bitcoin is its implementation of smart contracts, which allows developers to run decentralized applications, or dapps, directly on the Ethereum blockchain. Although the possibilities for smart contracts are nearly endless, a few dominant use cases have emerged.
“Ether has seen an already incredible price gain in the past 12 months, along with Bitcoin and other digital assets. Ether has risen about 560% in the past year, while Bitcoin is up about 430%, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Unlike Ether, Bitcoin has had since its start in 2009 a fixed supply of 21 million coins that will ever be created. That difference has led critics of Ethereum to say it shouldn’t be viewed as a similar digital currency as Bitcoin,” concludes Bloomberg.
For more news, information, and strategy, visit the Crypto Channel.
The opinions and forecasts expressed herein are solely those of Tom Lydon, and may not actually come to pass. Information on this site should not be used or construed as an offer to sell, a solicitation of an offer to buy, or a recommendation for any product.
Ethereum Is About to Surge as Supply Is Cut!
The Canadian Press
VICTORIA — British Columbia’s premier and health minister refused to directly answer questions Wednesday about the government’s contract with Telus, the provider whose call centres for COVID-19 vaccine appointments got off to a chaotic start. The Opposition Liberals repeatedly asked Premier John Horgan and Health Minister Adrian Dix during question period to release the contract and to provide basic information including its monetary value and the number of staff promised to the centres. Both Horgan and Dix did not provide specifics, but instead repeated earlier remarks that Monday was a “bad day,” when Vancouver Coastal Health was only able to book 369 appointments, but that steps have been taken to improve the situation. “People have bad days all the time,” Horgan said. “I’m fairly confident that Wayne Gretzky didn’t score in every game he played in, but he kept getting on the ice and doing the best he could. That’s exactly what we did in Vancouver Coastal Health.” Dix called a news conference later on Wednesday to report vast improvements had been made in the vaccine rollout since Monday, when health authorities first started booking appointments for people 90 years and older and Indigenous people 65 and older. He said the system had caught up to the point where as of noon Thursday, health authorities will start to schedule vaccine appointments for the next age group of people, between 85 and 89 years old, four days earlier than planned. “Our capacity to take appointments is higher today than it was yesterday,” said Dix. “It shows that while our system had a bad day on Monday, it has responded. Now, we’re determined, ready and able to take the next group of patients early.” As of 4 p.m. Wednesday, 37,661 people aged 90 and older had been able to make COVID-19 vaccination appointments. He said about 50,000 people in that age group are eligible for COVID-19 shots. Telus apologized for the rough start at the call centres on Monday, when many people experienced repeated busy signals and messages telling them to call back later. A statement from Telus said the team’s performance has improved since Tuesday. The statement says capacity at the call centres was more than doubled and by Wednesday, Telus surpassed the original staffing commitment to the government by 295 per cent. The Opposition Liberals said only 33 call-takers were originally assigned to Vancouver Coastal — the second-largest authority in the province. The Liberals asked why the government thought it would be an adequate level of staff as well as who signed the contract and when. Liberal Renee Merrifield, a member of the legislature for Kelowna-Mission elected last fall, called on the premier to take full responsibility for the “botched” rollout of the system. “I fully appreciate that accountability ends with me,” Horgan said. “If that doesn’t meet the bar set by the newly minted member for Kelowna, I apologize to her as well.” Dix said that 35,500 appointments have been booked over the past three days. He has previously said about 54,000 people are eligible to book this week. He said each health authority signed an agreement with Telus to provide call centre capacity under a long-standing master agreement with the company. “It’s natural that we would turn to an outstanding provider such as Telus to do this,” Dix said. The minister added that Telus president Darren Entwistle has “personally” driven the effort over the past two days to make things right. B.C. reported 531 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday and one new death, for a total of 1,394 people who have died from complications of the virus in the province. There have been 51 new cases of variants of concern. Of the 627 variant cases, 580 are the strain identified in the United Kingdom, 33 are the variant detected in South Africa and 14 are linked to Brazil. The province confirmed it has started to receive supplies of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, which will assist with outbreak response in communities and high-risk industries. There have been two COVID-19 outbreaks in long-term care homes where most residents and staff were vaccinated, which experts say is a reminder of the limits of immunization. Fraser Health said Tuesday that one resident and one staff member tested positive for COVID-19 at Fleetwood Place, a long-term care facility in Surrey where 88 per cent of residents had been vaccinated. The outbreak followed one declared Sunday at the Cottonwoods Care Centre in Kelowna, where 11 residents and two staff members tested positive despite 82 per cent of residents being immunized. Some of the cases at the Kelowna care home are in people who received two doses of the vaccine, provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said earlier this week. Henry said vaccines are effective at preventing severe illness and death, but they don’t necessarily stop all transmission, so masks and physical distancing remain important. Horacio Bach, a University of British Columbia infectious diseases expert, said older people’s immune systems may take longer than three weeks to produce antibodies or may not produce them at all. Bach said no vaccine prevents illness 100 per cent of the time, but the COVID-19 shots have been proven to be safe and very effective against serious illness and hospitalization. — By Laura Dhillon Kane in Vancouver This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 10, 2021. The Canadian Press
Ethereum Price Prediction: ETH could fall towards $1,500 as whales go into a selling spree
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Ethereum price remains contained inside an ascending broadening wedge pattern.
The digital asset faces a lot of selling pressure in the short-term.
Whales have been selling a lot of ETH in the past week.
Ethereum had a significant rebound from a critical support level on the 12-hour chart touching $1,877 on March 10. However, on-chain metrics suggest that the smart-contracts giant could be facing a significant correction soon.
Ethereum price at risk of a drop to $1,500
On the 12-hour chart, the TD Sequential indicator has presented a sell signal which could push Ethereum price down to the lower trendline of the ascending broadening wedge pattern at $1,500.
ETH/USD 12-hour chart
Additionally, the number of whales holding between 100,000 and 1,000,000 coins ($180,000,000 and $1,800,000,000) has decreased significantly from 157 on March 1 to 148 currently.
ETH Holders Distribution chart
The number of Ethereum coins locked inside DeFi protocols also decreased in the past week from 8.88 million to 8.68 million but the sum inside exchanges continues to decrease, which is a bullish factor.
ETH Supply on Exchanges
To invalidate the sell signal presented by the TD Sequential indicator, bulls must push ETH above $1,877 with a 12-hour candlestick close. This would drive Ethereum price towards the upper trendline of the pattern at $2,300.