Cryptocurrency
Ethereum Killers Are Rallying: Is Ether (ETH) $4K Still in the Cards?
Several base-layer blockchain cryptocurrencies that compete with Ethereum—because they are optimized for smart contracts and open-source currency issuance—rallied further up their price charts than ETH during the US election rally. Even Bitcoin gains beat Ether’s on this turn of the markets.
For the 30 days ending Friday, Nov. 22, Bitcoin’s price gained 47%. Meanwhile, Sui Coin (SUI) jumped by 74%, Solana by 56%, and Polkdadot (DOT) rose by 44%, according to data compiled by TradingView. Ether came up short of these DeFi competitors with a 25% increase for the period.
Even though the price of Ether on crypto exchanges marked $3,450 on Saturday, some investors are nervous about its prospects of reaching the $4,000 level by the peak of this crypto macrocycle.
In addition to concerns over the Ethereum platform’s overgrown, mutable code base and byzantine architecture, some analysts have expressed bearish worries about the Ether economy’s fundamentals.
Here’s one of crypto’s greatest tragedies:
Bitcoin, the most stable chain for long-term financial services, lacks the technical chops to provide them.
Ethereum, a chain with the tech to do it, is too mutable and complicated for anything besides gambling.
BOS fixes this. pic.twitter.com/9xPyLgHDER
— Yago (@EdanYago) November 22, 2024
Amberdata’s Director of Derivatives Greg Magadini, for example, said in a note to clients that “ETH faces serious headwinds as the value proposition of ‘sound money’ … has flipped to inflation supply as nearly all DeFi transactions are being executed on L2s … I believe that’s drastically dragging prices down.”
While ETH became a deflationary currency on Sept, 15, 2022, deflation has slowed in 2024 with the proliferation of currency onto Ethereum Layer-2 services. Though it hasn’t really slowed by much on the multi-year time scale.
1. Bullish: ETH/BTC Ratio Turns Again
Here’s how ETH has stacked up against BTC so far in 2024.
Legendary commodities and forex trader Peter Brandt pointed out to followers on Wednesday that the price ratio between BTC and ETH is at a cyclical inflection point, where it has formed a bottom in past cycles. That means Ether prices may soon rise, even as against BTC.
A letter from the grave???? $ETHBTC pic.twitter.com/FALauZ8M7R
— Peter Brandt (@PeterLBrandt) November 21, 2024
“A letter from the grave?” Brandt wrote in a note on X. The veteran commodities trader posted an Ethereum price-to-Bitcoin ratio graph from TradingView that shows how this metric melted up the chart last time it was this low at this time in BTC’s 4-year supply cycle.
Those are bullish technicals for Ethereum as cryptocurrency markets round the calendar into 2025.
2. Ethereum Price Prediction: $6,000 in 2025
Crypto chart analyst Ali Martinez predicts that Ether will outrun Bitcoin up the chart by the end of this macro market cycle. He marks $6,000 as a peak price in his most bullish scenario for Ether in the months ahead. Martinez expects at least $4,000 for Ethereum in this cycle.
#Ethereum $ETH is about to outperform #Bitcoin $BTC!
And here I show you the price targets
— Ali (@ali_charts) November 19, 2024
“Every market cycle has experienced a phase where #Ethereum outperforms Bitcoin,” began Martinez in a note to followers on X Tuesday. “That hasn’t happened yet in the current cycle, but it is certainly on the horizon. As ETH lags behind, there is an opportunity here to buy before it outperforms.”
“Savvy investors are aware of this, and there has been a significant shift in spot Ethereum ETFs,” Martinez wrote, displaying a chart of Ethereum spot ETF inflows from August through Nov. 18. “They went from distribution to accumulation, having amazed over $147 million in ETH.”
Spot #Ethereum $ETH ETFs have experienced a substantial shift over the past two weeks, with the cumulative total net inflow now standing at over $147 million! pic.twitter.com/mAYU1Bid2V
— Ali (@ali_charts) November 19, 2024
In another chart, Martinez exhibited a long-term ascending parallel channel starting in July 2022, which, if continued, could potentially see an Ethereum price above $5,000 by April 2025.
In addition to increasing ETF volume, open interest in Ethereum futures on the Chicago Board Options Exchange also shifted over the same time period.
CBOE Ether futures volume and open interest rose from 3,613 and 6,121, respectively, on Oct. 11 to 16,614 and 13,043 on Nov. 21, according to data from CME Group.
3. DApp Volumes Up 38% in a Month
Another fundamental analysis of Ethereum’s price, in addition to its inflation rate against the US dollar, is monthly active usage of Web3 or decentralized apps secured by its blockchain network.
Dapp volumes for Ethereum are on the upswing along with ETH/BTC reaching a historical inflection point and ETF investor sentiment turning bullish— and over the same calendar span as increasing Ether futures volume and ETF inflows, according to data from DApp Radar.
Ethereum’s DApp volume for the 30-day period ending Nov. 20 was far and away first-in-class among DeFi coins. With $150 billion in volume on its decentralized application layer, Ethereum well outpaced Arbitrum (ARB) in second with $32 billion and Binance Coin (BNB) in third with ($26 billion).
4. ETH Vs. SOL Do-Si-Do Nov. ‘24
We’ll add up the percentage of each base layer coin’s gains over a relevant period in November and their top three meme tokens, and/or L2 utilities, lemme know if you have preference.
Over the multi-year timeframe, Solana went on a stout bull run while Ethereum was in hibernation. That could mean there’s more upside left in Ethereum’s market on the next turn of the cycle.
The relative performance of base-layer ETH tokens, the three most popular Ethereum meme coins, against SOL tokens and the three most popular Solana memes during the US election rally is another signal portent of a paradigm shift in the markets for these competing altcoins.
SOL outperformed ETH during the 30 days ending Nov. 22. Ethereum flowed up the chart 25%, while Solana stacked 53% gains. Still, Ethereum’s top three meme coins outpaced Solana memes overall during the same period.
The cumulative 30-day ROI for Ethereum plus its top three memes was 220%, while the ROI for Solana plus its top three memes was 200%.
That higher percentage gain is nice for the individual altcoin trader holding the Ethereum coins in their bag during this time, but how hard was it for the market to move these economies by those percentages? It depends on several factors, but the market cap is a central indicator of their confluence.
The collective market caps of these Ethereum and Solana economies, were on Nov. 22: $423 billion and $129 billion, respectively. So the extra 21% worth of cumulative ROI on Ethereum coins is more impressive than that of Solana because it’s harder to move the ETH market cap.
Plus, there are those ETH fees, as SOL boosters would be apt to point out.
5. Institutional Backing for Ethereum
In addition to the upward shift in monthly Ethereum ETF net inflows and Ether futures volume in November, institutional investors show a high level of conviction for ETH in the percentage of their held coins that remain stakes to secure the network and earn yield in addition to gains in market prices on cryptocurrency exchanges.
Institutional investors are really into investing in Ethereum—not merely holding Ether but locking it into staking contracts to secure the platform’s economy for yield. That shows a high level of conviction in the product and in its long-term growth prospects.
Earlier in October, Carlos Mercado, a data scientist for blockchain strategy firm Flipside Crypto, pointed out that the number of Ethereum stakers had increased by over 30% over the trailing 12-month period. That figure notched the one million mark for the first time in June.
A recent survey of Ethereum users by Blockworks Research, a blockchain intelligence firm based in New York City, published in mid-Oct. 30, found that 69.2% of survey respondents stake Ethereum, but 78.8% of investment firms or asset managers own ETH stake.
Furthermore, they’re taking extra steps to keep their Ether more liquid as they stake it, with over 52% reporting that they use a liquid staking token. That shows a level of sophistication for these traditional finance participants in the cryptographic smart contract economy.
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The BTC relief rally in the past few days was halted yesterday as the asset was stopped at $100,000 and pushed south hard.
As expected, the altcoins have suffered even more, with substantial price declines from the likes of LINK, AVAX, ADA, SUI, and many others.
Bitcoin Stopped at $100K
Bitcoin went through a massive correction last week following the latest FOMC meeting. It dumped all the way from $108,000 to $92,000 in a matter of days. It bounced off on Friday and Saturday as the bulls drove it to almost $99,500.
However, it failed there and retraced hard once again at the start of the business week toward $92,000 once more. The bulls stepped up again at this point and initiated a notable price increase that pushed bitcoin up to $99,200 on Christmas Eve and almost $100,000 yesterday evening.
Once again, though, the cryptocurrency was stopped at this point. The subsequent rejection has driven it south hard, as the asset now struggles below $96,000.
Its market capitalization has declined to under $1.9 trillion on CG, while its dominance over the alts has increased to 54.6%.
Alts Bleed Out
The alternative coins registered some gains in the past few days as well, but red dominates all charts now. Ethereum was stopped at $3,500 and is below $3,400 after a 3.5% daily drop. Similar declines are evident from XRP, DOGE, SOL, BNB, TRX, and TON.
Even more painful corrections come from the likes of ADA, AVAX, LINK, SHIB, HBAR, XLM, and DOT, with losses of up to 9%. AAVE has plummeted by 10%, and so have ONDO and HYPE.
The cumulative market capitalization of all crypto assets has seen more than $100 billion gone and is down to $3.460 trillion on CoinGecko.
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Cryptocurrency charts by TradingView.
The newly launched Pudgy Penguins cryptocurrency Pengu (PENGU) has flipped Bonk (BONK) to claim the crown as the largest meme coin in the Solana ecosystem, with a market cap of $2.65 billion.
The shift is the culmination of a rally that kicked off on Christmas Eve when the token gained over 30% in 24 hours.
PENGU Rises
Data from the crypto price tracking website CoinGecko shows that the broader Solana meme coin market has experienced explosive growth, with its total valuation rising to $18.2 billion, a 10.3% increase over the last day.
Anchoring this performance was PENGU, which posted an 11.2% jump in the past 24 hours and a remarkable 22.3% rise in the last seven days.
The meme coin, airdropped to members of the globally successful Pudgy Penguins NFT community on December 17, has not been without controversy. Soon after the token’s launch, the floor prices of the NFT collection plunged by more than 50%, wiping out any gains made since early November.
According to analysts, this was largely because the value of the collection was partly pegged on exclusive access to the brand, with the introduction of PENGU making investment in the NFTs more accessible, therefore diluting their worth.
On its rollout, the coin shot to a record high of $0.0684 before dropping to a record low of $0.0114. It then see-sawed for the next few days, moving between $0.038 on December 18 to $0.0231 on December 20. However, since December 23, it has been making steady gains, going as high as $0.0417 on Boxing Day, a price that pushed its market cap to $2.62 billion.
BONK Falls
Conversely, the previous king of the Solana meme coins, BONK, showed more modest improvements in its price over the last seven days, going up 6.9% in that period. Further, across two weeks, it lost 17% of its value, with CoinGecko data showing another 23% plunge over 30 days, putting its market cap at just over $2.5 billion and allowing PENGU to surpass it.
The competition doesn’t end there. Other meme tokens like dogwifhat (WIF) and Fartcoin (FARTCOIN) are vying for investor attention. On Christmas Eve, the former reached an all-time high of $1.02, pushing its overall worth beyond the $1 billion mark.
However, despite Fartcoin being among the top gainers across seven days with a price increase of 13.1%, it has plummeted 15% since December 25. With a unit currently changing hands at about $$0.986, its $1.072 billion market cap is still some ways behind WIF’s $1.9 billion.
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Cryptocurrency
Holiday Warning for the Shiba Inu (SHIB) Community: Users Should Stay Vigilant for These Scams
TL;DR
- Shibarium Trustwatch warns SHIB holders of fake giveaways, phishing emails, and scam social accounts during the holidays.
- Users are cautioned to avoid sending emails about SHIFU tokens and urged to verify information through official channels.
‘Protect Yourself This Christmas’
Despite the festive season, scammers don’t have days off and are always on the lookout for new victims. One particular group in the cryptocurrency sector, which bad actors attack quite regularly, is the Shiba Inu (SHIB) community.
A few days ago, Shibarium Trustwatch (an X account that aims to provide security) alerted users to be extra cautious with several common crypto scams. The first is giveaways, which offer “free” tokens, merchandise, or NFTs. “Remember, free stuff is never truly free – providing personal information puts you at risk,” the team warned.
Second, the community should stay vigilant for phishing emails. Fraudsters often send emails to victims, claiming to be from official SHIB-related projects, thus trying to steal their login credentials.
Next on the list are social media accounts. The team cautioned that scammers create fake profiles on social media platforms pretending to be influencers, developers, or official accounts that offer tempting deals. “Verify handles and avoid DMs offering quick profits,” Shibarium Trustwatch warned.
Ponzi schemes, fake charity appeals, fake customer support, and malicious links are the other things the SHIB community should be careful about.
“Providing personal information or falling for these scams doesn’t just put you at risk – it may lead to your data being sold on the dark web, where hackers can use it for identity theft or other malicious activities. Scammers exploit trust, kindness, and generosity, especially during the holiday season, so we must stay vigilant.
Let’s keep the Shibarmy strong and safe this holiday season. Be cautious, protect your crypto, and share love responsibly. Nothing in life is free. Even the things that seem free often come with hidden costs or risks,” the team concluded.
The SHIFU Warning
Earlier this month, Shibarium Trustwatch issued an alert concerning the meme coin SHIFU. The team claimed that bad actors request victims to send them an email containing information about the token:
“Fraudsters are asking people to send them an email asking how to buy and claim SHIFU or if SHIFU has not appeared in their wallet.”
Shibarium Trustwatch advised users to stay away from that scheme and not send emails to anyone. Verifying information through official channels and avoiding sharing personal data is also necessary.
SHIFU is a dog-themed meme coin within the Shiba Inu ecosystem, which was introduced by Shytoshi Kusama at the beginning of the month. While it can be found on certain decentralized exchanges, leading crypto platforms like Binance have not yet embraced it.
A few weeks ago, the meme coin project launched a special airdrop. The team announced that 30% of the total SHIFU supply (30 billion tokens) will be allocated to the community. Of this, 22 billion SHIFU will go to holders with at least 100,000 SHIB and 100 BUBBLE. An additional 2 billion tokens are set aside for eligible LEASH holders, while BONE owners will receive 1 billion tokens.
The remaining 70% of the supply will be reserved for other purposes, including “liquidity and public pre-sale,” treasury funds, and marketing efforts.
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