Can Ethereum Rally to $2000, as BTC Price Reclaims $23,000?
Key Insights:
On July 19, the top cryptocurrency – BTC, jumped to as high as $23,500 on some exchanges.
The recent gains followed a volatile response across markets early in the week.
Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, is up by nearly 45% over the week, outpacing most of the top 100 crypto assets by market cap.
The larger cryptocurrency market finally seemed to recover from the bearish blues as macro conditions slowly turned to favor risk assets. The king crypto bitcoin (BTC) oscillated close to $22,000 on July 19; however, in the late trading hours of the same day, the top crypto jumped to as high as $23,500 on some exchanges.
As the July 19 candle approached a close, both bitcoin and ether (ETH) were up by 7.4% and 7.1% on the daily chart at the time of writing. While ETH has been the star performer of the week, charting nearly 45% gains on the weekly chart, bitcoin’s price has finally picked up the pace.
BTC Price Takes Off
This week, Bitcoin and the crypto market finally caught a breath of relief as the top asset rallied from $18,999 to the upper resistance range at $23,500. The recent gains followed a volatile response across markets early in the week, as US headline CPI inflation hit a forty-year high of 9.1%.
Over the last 24 hours, bitcoin price found support around the $21,600 mark and climbed above the $22,000 resistance. In the previous six hours from press time, BTC price broke the $23,500 resistance, briefly establishing above the 21 simple moving average.
As recovery continues, bears will defend the $24,450 mark with their might. That said, a short-term pull back to the $22,000 zone was seen, but dips were limited, and the price presented bullish momentum on both long-term and short-term charts.
At press time, BTC was trading at $23,428.68, noting an over 7% rise on the daily chart. Going forward, BTC’s bullish trajectory could provide ample scope for altcoins to rally.
Ethereum Rallies as The Merge Approached
Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, is up by nearly 45% over the week, outpacing most of the top 100 crypto assets by market cap. While there are quite a few speculations around ETH’s bullish run, the upcoming Ethereum merge is one of the primary catalysts of the price actions.
ETH traders are turning bullish as developers are inching close to the end of a multi-year, hyper-complicated upgrade. Amid the high social anticipation of the Merge, the total ETH supply in profit has now increased to 56%, after hitting lows of 41% before the current price rally.
Recent data from Glassnode also highlighted that over the last month, almost 7.8% of the circulating supply of ETH has transacted on-chain and changed hands.
ETH’s recently gained bullish momentum was also evident as the Number of ETH Addresses in Loss (7d MA) reached a 1-month low of 39,112,029 at press time.
That said, there is still considerable time for The Merge as the final steps that will effectively move Ethereum activity over to the Beacon Chain are planned for September this year. Ethereum educator, Superphiz.eth further highlighted in a Tweet that Goerli will be the last public testnet to run through the merge transition and should do so around August 11.
If everything goes well with Goerli, the mainnet merge is expected to float in the week of September 19.
ETH’s price has established itself above crucial resistance levels over the last few days. Over the coming days, the $1750 and $2000 levels could act as essential resistance zones for the top altcoin.
That said, if the bullish momentum weakens, a pullback to the $1500 mark could be expected in the near term. However, looking at the larger market’s bullish momentum, a positive price action could be witnessed by crypto assets.
This article was originally posted on FX Empire
