As the main weathervane of the altcoin market, Ethereum (ETH) has represented the general throttling that altcoins have gone through recently: as Bitcoin (BTC) has whipsawed from one end of the chart to the other, ETH has been thrashed in the opposite direction.

The rest of this week is a critical point for ETH: the ETH/BTC chart looks terrible and, if it closes out the week as it looks now, the leading altcoin could be in for real trouble.

ETH/USD

As usual, Ether’s USD chart looks better than its BTC pairing.

ETH has seen nowhere near the recovery that Bitcoin has(source: TradingView.com)

We start with a full, two-year view of the weekly chart. We note that Ethereum is getting snagged on a major resistance zone between $300-360. We also note that, whereas Bitcoin is currently above the 0.5 Fibonacci retracement line on its own chart, Ethereum has not even cleared the 0.236 line from its 2018 price range. We also see that volume in 2019 was higher – Kraken chart – than it ever was in 2017/18.

Cautious strength(source: TradingView.com)

Moving to the daily chart, we see a mixed bag. We might think of a bearish divergence on the daily RSI, but generally we see a not-very-clear RSI pattern – looking either like a channel or a triangle. But despite a vicious dump on June 27, aggressive buying has kept the leading altcoin above the $275 centerline zone; and kept daily closes above the 21 EMA.

Clear strength on the 4h(source: TradingView.com)

The four-hour chart is where we see potential promise. Strength on the indicators has been bullishly diverging from price. ETH seems to be slowly chewing away at the EMAs, trying to get above them. With building strength, maybe it can.

ETH/BTC

There’s no other way to say it: ETH/BTC weekly looks bad. But the week is far from over and the current chart is not yet set in stone.

Weekly ETH/BTC looks scary(source: TradingView.com)

Some dire warnings are visible on the weekly. What was a faintly uptrending RSI trend has been broken; the MACD indicator has crossed over downward; and price is testing for the third time a very critical support zone (repeated testing of supports weaken them, typically).

There is still time for this chart to turn around, with a few days left. If it closes with this same aspect, however, it could be a dire warning of things to come.

ETH/BTC 4h is hanging on with fingernails(source: TradingView.com)

Zooming way into the four-hour, we also see not much good. The RSI uptrend here has already been lost, although the histogram is cautiously ticking up.

What we take away here is that Ethereum is on life support thanks to the Bitcoin-fiat inflation effect. ETH/BTC looks like it was run over with a truck, and bulls need to step in to save from falling through this critical support.

Daily chart is our only hope(source: TradingView.com)

Only on the daily ETH/BTC chart do we see any signs of hope. A clear bullish divergence is showing up on the RSI. If bulls can make some kind of showing today and keep the price from going lower, they could have a chance to reverse the atrocious weekly chart.

Ethereum needs to show up.

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