As Bitcoin (BTC) has blistered toward all-time highs, the leading altcoin, Ethereum (ETH) has mostly been left in the dust these past weeks along with the rest of the altcoin market.
Of course, this is will inevitably change, and it’s only a question of when. And against fiat pairings, Ethereum is beginning to break some important milestones suggesting further price rises.
Looking at the daily chart below, we see that ETH/USD has broken out of a monthlong consolidation and is steaming upward. However, we can also note that this has somehow occurred on quite weak volume.
This is probably due to the source of Ether’s price rise: Bitcoin’s own price rise inflates the entire crypto market, even as other assets are sold off in favor of Bitcoin. This effect is enough to inflate prices without much direct buying.
We can expect some resistance around $360 one way or the other. But for a clearer picture of what is actually going on with Ethereum, we should look at the ETH/BTC chart.
On the ETH/USD daily chart (Binance), we see that Ether has truly taken a beating since mid-June, when Bitcoin began its current parabolic run toward its own all-time-highs – which is completely typical of altcoins.
We see that ETH has been sold off into historic lows for the pairing, during Bitcoin’s runup. This selloff will abate only when that Bitcoin runup ends – and at this point, with Bitcoin nearly at a stage of “price discovery,” it is very hard to say when that will be.
Looking at the weekly chart, we have some slight cause for optimism. A triple bottom at the aforementioned level is buttressed by a rising weekly RSI strength. This suggests that buy strength on the leading altcoin is very slowly building – and if it holds here, it could signal a reversal.
However, strength tends to diminish every time a support line is tested – at least in crypto markets – and a wider view of the huge weekly chart shows us just how much further ETH/BTC has to drop in order to really reach historic lows: as much as 60% of empty air until the next serious support.
Hopefully we won’t get to test it.
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