Ethereum Price Prediction As ETH Increases 5% In One Week – Where Is ETH Heading Now?

The Ethereum price has fallen 2.5% in the past 24 hours, reaching $1,641 amid a 2.5% drop for the market as a whole today. Despite this drop, the current price means it is up 5% in a week, while it is up 37% since the start of the year.

As the cryptocurrency market continues to recover this year, ETH is one of the best-placed tokens to rally. With arguably the best fundamentals in the market and enviable network effects, it could witness some big price increases as 2023 begins as it solidifies its position as the largest tier-one smart contract platform.

Ethereum Price Prediction As ETH Increases 5% In One Week – Where Is ETH Heading Now?

ETH’s indicators suggest that the altcoin could be due for a fall in the coming days, with its relative strength index (purple) starting to decline from 60. Likewise, its 30-day moving average (red) has halted its ascent from its 200 -days (blue), and looks set to come down again, taking ETH’s price with it.

An important support level to watch here is $1,600. If ETH falls below this price, a more significant sell-off could be on the cards, with the coin’s recent descent below $1,600 leading to another drop below $1,500.

Aside from this qualm, ETH continues to have some of the strongest fundamentals in the market. Its total value locked – at $28.85 billion – accounts for 58.7% of the entire DeFi sector, although this percentage would be even higher if you also included Ethereum-based layer-two networks (such as Polygon).

Given its early mover advantage and massive network effects, Ethereum continues to attract investors and users who want to be on the platform that “everyone else” is on. And with Ethereum successfully completing its transition to proof-of-stake in September, it has laid the groundwork for increasing speed, scalability and efficiency.

Indeed, Ethereum seems to have only grown in stature since September’s merger, with the beginning of the month bringing the news that payments giant Visa is testing USDC stablecoin payments on the Ethereum blockchain. Added to previous Ethereum cheerleading from Visa, this development is very bullish for Ethereum, suggesting that the major players are banking on its success.

In addition, Ethereum is preparing for the Shanghai Update, which will enable the withdrawal of staked ETH. While some have argued that this will result in a flood of newly released ETH entering the market, it will likely have the opposite effect, in that it completes Ethereum’s transition to a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism.

In fact, the fact that people can withdraw the stake rewards will encourage more people to invest in the Ethereum ecosystem. At the same time, Shanghai is introducing a series of updates that are necessary if Ethereum is to implement such innovations as sharding, which will enable it to process transactions in parallel.

In other words, Shanghai is sending Ethereum further down the road to becoming a more scalable network, and the result of the upgrade implementation will likely be ethereum price increases.

From the current price, ETH could move to $1700 once the current decline has played out. After that, the arrival of Shanghai and other positive adoption news could push it up to $1,800 and higher, potentially reaching $2,000 by mid-year.

More generally, there are various reasons to suspect sustained price increases in 2023. To begin with, the merger and such upgrades EIP 1559 have given ETH a tendency to become deflationary during periods of busier activity.

On top of this, whales and other larger investors have been taking ETH off the exchanges in recent months. For example, data compiled by Santiment suggests that the value of ETH stored by exchanges has fallen by 37% since the merger (in September), with the total amount of ETH falling by 30% over the same period.

As Shangahi is implemented and efforts become more widespread, we can expect even more ETH to be taken by the exchanges. The result of this is that along with EIP 1559 and other “deflationary” updates, ETH’s supply will be squeezed, causing the coin’s price to rise higher.

Buy Ethereum now

Is now a good time to buy Ethereum?

While ETH is definitely undervalued right now, it may not see a significant increase until after the Shanghai upgrade at the earliest. In light of this, we’ve taken a look at other coins with high potential and compiled a list of the top 15 cryptocurrencies for 2023, as analyzed by CryptoNews Industry Talk team.

The list is updated weekly with new altcoins and ICO projects, so be sure to check back for new entries.

^{Disclaimer: The Industry Talk section contains insights from crypto industry players and is not part of the editorial content of Cryptonews.com.}