Should You Buy Ethereum Soon?
Last week I showed, see here, using the Elliott Wave Principle (EWP) and Technical Analysis (TA) that Ethereum (ETH) was most likely about to embark on a nasty correction to $1300s. It was trading at $1920s then, topped a few days later at around $2040 and dropped this week to as low as $1361…
Thus, (black) major-4 -as shown in last week’s chart, is IMHO now underway and has already reached the ideal target zone as outlined last week ($1300+/-100). So is this wave-4 already complete, and can we now expect the rally to $3000+? Hold your horses, not so fast. Let me explain.
Figure 1. ETH daily chart with detailed EWP count and technical indicators.
The Elliott Wave Principle points to a bounce followed by the next move lower.
This week’s “flash crash” is what I call an “initiation wave”; it has set in motion the more extensive correction: blue wave-a in Figure-1. But, from EWP -and from studying chart patterns in general- we know that there’s always this “dead cat bounce” first before the next leg lower starts. In EWP-terms, this counter-trend rally is called a B-wave. B-waves always consist of three smaller waves: a, b, c. In Figure-1, I have labeled the B-wave in blue and its smaller waves in green.
IMHO, wave-a of B is now underway or has possibly already been completed, and green wave-b should ideally target $1495-1575, from which green (minor) wave-c will target $1845-1930, ideally. This upside target zone is based on a simple c=a relationship. It also matches well with a typical 62-76% retrace of the initiation wave-A. The caveat is that 4th waves are often the least reliable, i.e., most variable, and in addition to that, hardest to forecast price structures. In general terms, they can be considered as a healthy consolidation, i.e., profit-taking, after a big run-up (the prior wave-3) with lots of shorter-term twists and turns, rips and dips. Many would then call the “bull flags.”
Whatever we call it; after wave-A comes wave-B (now underway) and then wave-C: green-red-black path in Figure 1, which is not accurate in time. Assuming wave-B tops around $1880+/-40 and that wave-C=A, then wave-4 should bottom around $1200+/-100. From there, I anticipated the next larger multi-month rally: major wave-5. If the 2017 rally is of any guide, see last week’s article, then please know the major-4 wave back then was a 70% correction, but followed by an 1100% rally (!). Please keep these numbers in mind in anticipation of the pending wave-5.
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Bottom line: shorter-term I am looking for a somewhat tricky, whipsawing, move higher, ideally to around $1880+/-40, but it could even challenge the recent all-time high. From there, I expect several weeks of downside back to $1200+/100. After that, I anticipated the next rally to ~$3000+. However, a weekly close below $1200 targets $900. That translates to a 55% correction, and if 2017 is of any guide, it would still be fully within the norm. Thus, trade ETH accordingly: sitting through a 40-50% correction thinking it will go to $3000 is not a strategy. It is dead money, which could be allocated somewhere else. And hope is never a strategy but a disaster recipe. Trade safe!
This article was originally posted on FX Empire
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Ethereum Is a Better Long Run Bet Than Bitcoin, Researchers Say
In an article featuring recent science research into the cryptocurrency market, Ross Pomeroy offers some researchers’ perspective on why Ethereum tends to be more stable than Bitcoin:
Ethereum might be a better long-term investment than Bitcoin. The cryptocurrency Ethereum ranks second to Bitcoin in terms of popularity, yet two studies have shown that tends to be more stable and a better “safe-haven” investment during difficult economic times. As a team of researchers from Singapore wrote in the journal PLoS ONE, “Although both Bitcoin and Ethereum are digital tokens that serve as decentralised currency based on blockchain technology, there are crucial differences between them. While Bitcoin has positioned itself as an alternative monetary system in the financial market, Ethereum has mostly focused on monetising smart contracts. Also, being the first cryptocurrency, Bitcoin has been widely used for speculative purposes. These traits are reflected in the user composition… where the behavior of Ethereum users is observed to be more stable as these users are more optimistic of the market. In contrast, the behavior of the Bitcoin users tend to fluctuate according to the trend of the market, with a loss of optimism when the market goes down.” Ross Pomeroy, “Five Things Science Has Told Us About Cryptocurrency” at RealClearScience (February 22, 2021) The paper is open access.
Other science findings were that cryptocurrency consumes a great deal of energy and that its traders are more erratic than traditional investors. But nonetheless cryptos are part of a balanced portfolio and crypto investors display herd behavior.
Now, the “herd behavior” part does not seem like a very big surprise or new idea in the market. But it is interesting that the cryptos are coming to be seen as part of a balanced portfolio. The paper cited is here: “ This study investigates the impact of diversification with the addition of five cryptocurrencies from November 2015 to November 2019 on four traditional asset portfolios. The results show that the diversification increased the returns in most of the cases, and reduced the portfolio volatility in all portfolios, and also provided higher returns as compared to the traditional portfolios for the same level of risk.” (Technol Forecast Soc Change, December 2020, open access).
Some analysts are less enthusiastic. Economics prof Gary Smith wrote here at Mind Matters News, “Investors who buy bonds get paid interest. Investors who buy stocks get paid dividends. Investors who buy apartment buildings get paid rent. People who buy cryptocurrencies get nothing more than the hope that they can sell their cryptocurrency to a Greater Fool for a higher price than they foolishly paid.” (December 16, 2019)
Is crypto really just a flash in the pan? It’s been on a wild ride recently.
February 16, 2021: Bitcoin Price 2021: 8 Big Companies Boosting BTC to $50K
February 23, 2021: Ethereum (ETH/USD) Crushed as Cryptocurrency Market is Overrun by Sellers
Maybe not a bubble. But truly ready for prime time?
You may also wish to read:
How Bitcoin works: The social value of trust It is very interesting to study a technology that doesn’t rely on trust. However, in the end, the most interesting thing it tells us is not how we should build a network but rather the social value of trust in society. (Jonathan Bartlett)
and
Bitcoin is a classic bubble investment. In large data sets, correlations are easy to find. Useful relationships are more elusive. (Gary Smith)
The ‘Unique Opportunity’ to Upgrade Ethereum’s Virtual Stack
With Eth 2.0’s first hard fork spec mapped out, attention has turned to the planned merge of Eth 1.x and Ethereum 2.0.
And, not wanting to lose momentum around the merge, Vitalik Buterin has proposed making some additional changes to the network, given most people don’t see Ethereum changing much afterward (minus some cleanup, more shards and, of course, our new favorite Ethereum word, rollups).
In two blog posts and on Friday’s All Core Developers call, Buterin made the case for stripping less useful – or maybe even harmful – functions in Ethereum’s codebank sometime before or during the merge. Buterin mainly focused on opcodes used in Ethereum’s Virtual Machine (EVM).
Related: Planning to Short Bitcoin? Better Check China’s ‘Tether Premium’ First
“We have a unique opportunity to make some backwards-incompatible changes to the EVM that could be valuable for Ethereum in the long term,” Buterin said on GitHub Feb. 18. “The portion of applications that would need to be rewritten as a result of these changes is quite small, but it is nevertheless nonzero.”
Making changes to the EVM
Chief on that list is the SELFDESTRUCT function which rewards anyone who destroys a contract sitting idly on the Ethereum state. The intended purpose of the opcode was to incentivize Ethereum developers to practice “good hygiene” and destroy contracts when they weren’t necessary anymore. That would help reduce Ethereum’s long-term state size.
However, it hasn’t really panned out like that. Right now the function stands in the way of scaling Ethereum by making it “difficult to move to a different state storage format in the future,” among other reasons, Buterin said.
In fact, many people use the function as a discount of sorts in case Ethereum’s fees rise. Called gas tokens, these tokens can be bought when gas is cheap and spent later when gas is expensive to help lower the cost of a transaction. Ethereum developers have considered removing the opcode from the EVM a few times, most recently in September.
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Related: Craig Wright Demands Bitcoin Developers Give Him Access to Stolen Mt. Gox Coins
Making changes to the EVM or any other technical descriptions in the Ethereum Yellow Paper has not made everyone happy. Some decentralized application (dapp) creators expressed frustration that functions their projects rely on may be removed, such as the gas that enables dapps to check in on how much gwei is left in a contract execution.
It’s unclear how much support the EVM cleanup pitch will receive. Moreover, any changes to the EVM will come with ample warnings beforehand, Buterin said.
“The overwhelming majority of applications are not dependent on anything that is expected to break here,” Buterin said. “It’s a very small percentage.”
Pulse check: The CoinDesk legend of Zelda begins
The CoinDesk Ethereum 2.0 validator, officially dubbed “Zelda” by Director of Engineering Spencer Beggs, was activated on Feb. 17. Over the past six days or so, Zelda has earned 0.04 ETH, which is worth roughly $61.80 at time of writing. At this rate, the annual percentage return (APR) of our validator operations is expected to be around 7%.
If you’re new to Valid Points and the topic of Ethereum 2.0 in general, be sure to check out our 101 explainer on Eth 2.0 metrics to get up to speed about jargon and terminology used throughout this newsletter.
In the first couple of hours after Zelda was activated on Ethereum 2.0, our validator operations lost roughly $3.45 worth of ether. This was due to a file permissions issue that prevented Zelda from signing off on attestations, which is the most common responsibility required of an Eth 2.0 validator node. (The other less-common responsibility is proposing blocks.)
Updating file permissions and rebooting Zelda was a simple fix that got our validator operations back in the green within 24 hours.
Setting up a validator? Keep these points in mind
The first lesson learned from this minor mishap was this: Remember to stay awake for the activation of your validator node to ensure all operations are running smoothly from the get-go.
Most validators after they have deposited their 32 ETH to the Eth 2.0 deposit contract will be put in a pending queue before they’re activated on the network and able to earn rewards. The amount of time needed for validators to wait in the queue before activation can range from a few days to a couple weeks.
Rough estimates of the exact day and time a validator will exit the queue, based on how many other validators are also waiting in the line for activation, can be found on block explorers BeaconScan and Beaconcha.in.
Unfortunately, Zelda’s activation took place at roughly 4:00 (ET) in the morning, which is why most of the CoinDesk staff, including myself, were asleep. Had any one of us been awake for the activation of the node, any irregularities in our operations could have been noticed in advance and resolved more quickly.
Another important thing to remember is to keep validator operations as simple as possible. About 132 validators have been slashed since the network launched on Dec. 1, 2020. Being slashed on Eth 2.0 carries more consequences than missing out on a few attestations. Slashing occurs when there’s evidence of malicious behavior by a validator. The network can correctly or mistakenly view the actions of a validator as a potential attack or attempt to rewrite blockchain history and data. This results in the validator being forced to exit the network, meaning it is no longer eligible to earn rewards on Eth 2.0.
Slashing happens commonly when Eth 2.0 validator operators are trying to maximize rewards by setting up two computers to run one validator. When one of the computers goes offline, the other automatically boots up and takes over validator operations. While this sounds like a perfect idea to maximize APR by having your validator running virtually without any downtime, it can lead to mistakes where both computers are running the same validator at the same time.
As soon as the network detects instances where a single validator is proposing different blocks or signing off on attestations more than once, operations could get slashed.
“The risk is not worth it,” said the co-lead developer of Prysmatic Labs, Raul Jordan, in an interview with CoinDesk.
While it might be tempting to try and maximize rewards by complicating the node setup so that there is never any downtime, it might come at the expense of losing the ability to earn any rewards on your staked ETH.
For more information about slashing events on Eth 2.0 and more comments by Jordan, be sure to tune in tomorrow to our weekly podcast series “Mapping Out Eth 2.0.”
Validated takes
DeFi lending platforms liquidate record $115 million in loans as ETH price drops (Article, CoinDesk)
Ethereum trading bot strategy extracted $107 million in 30 days, research suggests (Article, CoinDesk)
Kraken CEO says ether flash crash was due to trading, not system glitch (Article, CoinDesk)
Nyan cat NFT sells for 300 ETH, opening the door to the ‘meme economy’ (Article, CoinDesk)
The business of art and how NFTs will change it, with Nanne Dekking (Podcast, CoinDesk)
Top auction house Christie’s to accept ether cryptocurrency for digital art sale (Article, CoinDesk)
Why Ethereum miners will accept EIP 1559 (Blog post, Deribit Insights)
Nvidia releases a new Ethereum ASIC mining chip (Blog post, Nvidia)
A list of EVM features potentially worth removing (HackMD post, Vitalik Buterin)
Factoid of the week
Open comms
Feel free to reply any time and email research@coindesk.com with your thoughts, comments or queries about today’s newsletter. Between reads, chat with us on Twitter.
Valid Points incorporates information and data directly from CoinDesk’s own Eth 2.0 validator node in weekly analysis. All profits made from this staking venture will be donated to a charity of our choosing once transfers are enabled on the network. For a full overview of the project, check out our announcement post.
You can verify the activity of the CoinDesk Eth 2.0 validator in real time through our public validator key, which is:
0xad7fef3b2350d220de3ae360c70d7f488926b6117e5f785a8995487c46d323ddad0f574fdcc50eeefec34ed9d2039ecb.
Search for it on any Eth 2.0 block explorer site!
Finally, Will Foxley and I will be continuing the conversation on Ethereum 2.0 in a CoinDesk podcast series called “Mapping Out Eth 2.0.” New episodes air every Thursday. Listen and subscribe through the CoinDesk podcast feed on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocketcasts, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Stitcher, RadioPublica, IHeartRadio or RSS.
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