Ethereum (ETH) continued a sideways movement on Wednesday as investors seemed to be waiting for an upward or downward price catalyst. Despite the price stagnancy, the ETH validator queue – possibly fueled by the DeFi restaking boom – rose sharply.
Read more: Ethereum declines as crypto market crash increases bearish sentiment
Ethereum’s price is yet to show signs of appreciation on Wednesday as the market is moving slowly. Here are key market movers for the number one altcoin:
Also read: Ethereum recovers from dip as Hong Kong ETH ETF approval sparks whale buying spree
Another whale who bought 96,638 ETH from Coinbase at $1,567 in September seemed to be taking profit as he deposited 5,000 ETH to Kraken on Tuesday, according to Lookonchain.
Ethereum has struggled to enter an upward trajectory on Wednesday as it still hovers around the $3,000 support. It has continued a sideways downward-like movement as there’s no catalyst to cause a significant price shift yet.
While ETH continues filling the liquidity void formed on Saturday, a short-term Bitcoin halving effect could cause it to move upward briefly to cover the previous liquidity void of April 12. However, ETH faces a key resistance of $3,406 formed on April 7.
ETH/USDT 1-hour chart
As stated previously, ETH may continue trading within the range of $2,852 and $3,301 in the next few days, except if major factors prevail. These factors include the Iran-Israel conflict, Bitcoin dominance, and the Securities & Exchange Commission’s (SEC) decision on an ETH approval.
Read more: Ethereum price stagnates as EIP-3074 brings smart contract functionalities to wallets
Another factor to note is that ETH long liquidations have slowed down compared to the past two days. Long liquidations in the past 24 hours are at $29.3 million. This indicates that bear traders may be running out of steam; hence, a further price decline below the range given above isn’t expected.
ETH is trading at $2,989 at the time of writing.
Ethereum is a decentralized open-source blockchain with smart contracts functionality. Serving as the basal network for the Ether (ETH) cryptocurrency, it is the second largest crypto and largest altcoin by market capitalization. The Ethereum network is tailored for scalability, programmability, security, and decentralization, attributes that make it popular among developers.
Ethereum uses decentralized blockchain technology, where developers can build and deploy applications that are independent of the central authority. To make this easier, the network has a programming language in place, which helps users create self-executing smart contracts. A smart contract is basically a code that can be verified and allows inter-user transactions.
Staking is a process where investors grow their portfolios by locking their assets for a specified duration instead of selling them. It is used by most blockchains, especially the ones that employ Proof-of-Stake (PoS) mechanism, with users earning rewards as an incentive for committing their tokens. For most long-term cryptocurrency holders, staking is a strategy to make passive income from your assets, putting them to work in exchange for reward generation.
Ethereum transitioned from a Proof-of-Work (PoW) to a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) mechanism in an event christened “The Merge.” The transformation came as the network wanted to achieve more security, cut down on energy consumption by 99.95%, and execute new scaling solutions with a possible threshold of 100,000 transactions per second. With PoS, there are less entry barriers for miners considering the reduced energy demands.