Ethereum (ETH) drops below $1,000
If Ether's price history is any indication, it could boom to US$1,300 as the market recovers.
OPINION: After dropping into the US$700 range during the troubles that shook the market last week, Ethereum bounced back more efficiently than some other coins. This is true to form. Throughout its history, ETH has tended to find a series of price floors and then ride safely above them.
This isn't surprising when you consider the exceptionally large ERC20 ecosystem attached to Ethereum and the range of practical purposes associated with the coin. Hundreds of other coins and systems depend on ETH, so it's probably not at risk of disappearing in the near future. There will always be buyers who appreciate ETH and who are willing to scoop it up if they feel it's undervalued.
The current price floor might be US$1,000. It dropped down to US$800 the morning of 17 January, following rumours of a crackdown in China, and then spent the afternoon climbing back above US$1,000, according to CoinMarketCap data. This was much faster than most other coins, some of which are still lagging behind.
The drop today saw it run as low as US$930, but it took less than an hour for it to recover back over US$1,000. Much like bitcoin at the US$10,000 mark, ETH seems to have found its current floor at US$1,000.
Will the price of ETH go back up?
It seems likely. The coin spent a bit of time comfortably sitting over US$1,300 from 10-17 January this year, and that might be its real floor right now. The market is on a downswing right now, but once it recovers, it seems likely that ETH will too.
And unlike other coins that might be stagnating, ETH is on track to get more useful over time. The Casper update is likely to positively impact prices for two reasons:
- It helps solve the network's current troubles with slow and expensive transactions.
- It switches to a proof-of-stake mining network, which is likely to encourage a bit of coin hoarding and drive prices up ahead of adoption.
Cryptocurrencies go up and down, but ETH has tended to take two steps forward for each step back, and there's clearly no shortage of motivated buyers.
What is ETH and how to buy it?
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