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While Bitcoin briefly dabbled with $19k on Saturday, it found resistance there and has retreated a couple of percent to the mid-$18k range. Ethereum on the other hand has kept the momentum running and has powered to its highest price since June 2018.
The green candles for Ethereum just keep coming as it surged from just over $500 on Saturday morning to top out at $585 by Monday morning.
Over the past seven days, Ethereum has cranked 26% from around $460 this time last Monday. Since the beginning of the year, ETH has surged 350% outperforming its big brother Bitcoin which has only made around 150% by comparison.
Next Target For Ethereum: $620
Traders and analysts, such as the popular Josh Rager, are eyeing the next level of resistance which appears on the long-term weekly chart at closes around the $620 level.
$ETH
At resistance on higher time frames – a real challenge is to break and hold above $570
The next target from there on daily/weekly would be $618
Ethereum would have to sustain some crazy momentum to hit that without a pullback first
Holding spot positions here pic.twitter.com/dL8RCKShIx
— Josh Rager 📈 (@Josh_Rager) November 22, 2020
Fellow trader ‘IncomeSharks’ thinks the rally could be running out of steam and heading for a pullback.
“4h chart looking like decision time. This is looking like a bearish div on the OBV, but if this breaks then that invalidates a pretty important close that I’m watching.”
The immediate pullback area is $560 but further downsides could see the asset dip to $520 with a lot more support at $510.
Staking Over Half Way There
Much of this momentum is coming from the build-up to the launch of ETH 2.0, proof-of-stake consensus mechanism with Beacon Chain. Early staking has not been that fruitful, but a recent surge has taken the amount staked so far to 55% of the target according to the ETH 2.0 Launchpad.
This milestone means that there are now 291,352 ETH, worth roughly $187 million at today’s prices, already staked with 231,936 to go.
Spartan Group partner Kelvin ‘Spartan Black’ Koh has observed that the price of ETH could well climb higher the closer to that 100% the staking total gets.
The closer we get to 100% of 524K threshold, the higher the price of $ETH… pic.twitter.com/NO3uCVLoJU
— SpartanBlack (@SpartanBlack_1) November 23, 2020
Currently things are not looking likely to meet the proposed date of December 1 since the total needs to be in place a week before genesis, which is November 24.
If it comes before the end of the month, then a mid-December launch may be possible which is likely to result in a very happy holiday period for Ethereum holders.