The ETH price has risen by 0.5% in the past 24 hours, ascending to $1,919 after a long-dormant participant in the Ethereum ICO apparently sold $116 million of the token via Kraken.
ETH is now up by 2% in the last seven days and by 11% in the last 30 days, with the altcoin having risen by 60% since the beginning of the year.
It seems that an XRP-driven and market-wide rally has helped Ethereum avoid being damaged too much by the sale of the formerly inactive ETH, although the offloading of such a large sum of the cryptocurrency potentially doesn’t bode well for the near future.
But with Ethereum remaining one of the strongest cryptocurrencies in the market in terms of fundamentals, ETH is bound to rise again sooner or later.
Ethereum Price Prediction as ETH ICO Participant Moves $100 Million After 8 Years – What’s Going On?
ETH’s indicators look as though the coin could witness further gains in the coming days, with its relative strength index (purple) passing above 50 and potentially heading to 60 or higher.
This signals growing momentum for ETH, yet the coin will need to reverse the decline of its 30-day moving average (yellow) before there can be a strong expectation that it will see some consistent gains.
To be fair, ETH looks as though it has finished a mini-correction that began in the weekend, when market euphoria regarding the Ripple decision subsided a little.
It’s unlikely to fall much further in the near term, with its support level (green) having held up very well over the past week, despite a number of falls.
And while some observers may regard the news of the dormant ETH with alarm, it should be regarded as mostly positive that someone has been able to sell more than $100 million in ETH without there being a massive impact on the altcoin’s price.
The funds in question – about 61,216 ETH – had been held in a wallet address that had been dormant for eight years, since Ethereum’s 2015 ICO.
Why they were moved now rather than in previous years remains a mystery, yet some observers have suggested that, even though the ETH was sent to Kraken, it wasn’t actually sold.
Indeed, someone has put forward the possibility that the ETH was sent to the exchange for staking, which is certainly a possibility (so long as the holder isn’t based in the United States).
And given that there has been no obvious indication or evidence that the ETH has been sold (including no significant dip in price), staking shouldn’t be discounted as a probability.
Either way, a large sale doesn’t change Ethereum’s status as one of the biggest and most valuable cryptocurrencies in the market.
As we’ve written before, not only does Ethereum account for more than 50% of the DeFi sector, but its shift to a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism has made it more desirable as an asset.
One the one hand, staking has resulted in more than 24 million ETH being taken out of circulation, making the coin more scarce.
On the other hand, the introduction of fee burning has also resulted in ETH becoming deflationary during periods of higher traffic, meaning that its overall supply has actually declined since September.
This makes ETH much more attractive as an investment, and when coupled with its growth as a layer-one smart contracts platform, it seems like anyone who has a diversified cryptocurrency portfolio should have some ETH.
The market can therefore expect ETH to continue making steady gains over the medium- and long-term, with the altcoin likely to return to $2,000 in the next few weeks.
And by the end of the year, increasingly positive conditions could help it reach $2,500 or even $3,000, before a potential bull market in 2024.
