On a day with a perfect balance between red and green cryptocurrencies, the price rise of Ethereum Classic (ETC) stands out today, benefiting from the announcement that the next hard fork scheduled for January 15th, Agartha, provides compatibility with the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain including the features of the recent ETH update, Constantinople.
This benefits ETC’s value, which is up 7%. Ethereum Classic, unlike Ethereum, regains its share and revises its November levels. The technical configuration is very similar to that of its direct cousin, Ethereum, with a fall from the highs at the beginning of June and a drop that brought prices back to the December levels of last year, scoring a double low.
This is the difference with Ethereum, which despite a 65% loss in value, now sees its prices at February values. ETC undoes, with the low recorded last week, between December 18th and 19th, the rise that had characterised it from the highs of June 2019 along with the entire sector. The second half of the year cancelled out all the gains recorded in the first six months of 2019.
The market remained unchanged over Christmas. There were no particular movements in weekly prices. Bitcoin, as well as Ethereum and the main altcoins, remain within a range marked by last Sunday’s highs when prices recorded the last upward movement that saw BTC rise by over $400, while Ethereum recorded the upward move towards $135.
Despite the holidays, volumes are trading above the average for the last few weeks. In the last 24 hours, average volumes have been over $80 billion, confirming that even when traditional markets remain static due to holidays, cryptocurrency markets are not experiencing a decrease in interest.
With this lack of volatility and price movements, the market cap returns to 190 billion dollars after having tried to go over 200 billion dollars at the beginning of the week, showing that it is the secondary altcoins that are giving signs of relative weakness.
The quarter is about to end with a negative balance for the cryptocurrency sector, but in the 4 days remaining until the end of the year, everything is still possible. Bitcoin approaches the end of 2019 with dominance close to the annual highs, at 69%, a level achieved in recent days and which continues to confirm the market dominance. Ethereum is at 7.2%, Ripple at 4.2%, the lowest levels of the last three months.
Bitcoin (BTC) price today
Bitcoin drives prices in a narrow range with volumes above the average of the month of December, but these are volumes that do not support the micro fluctuations upwards downwards. For BTC, it remains necessary to consolidate above $7,000 to $7,100 to aim to review the $7,700 before the end of the year, the highest levels recorded in December.
Ethereum (ETH) price today
Ethereum remains in a boring movement with prices that hold $125 without giving the slightest sign of collection towards the return to $135. This last level of medium-term resistance is the threshold to recover to give a first bullish signal.
A break of the $125 would aggravate Ethereum’s position by opening spaces to go and test the next valid level of support in the $105 area.
