The Ethereum market is always an interesting creature to keep an eye on. To this day, it is still the best-performing cryptocurrency which initially started out as a cryptocurrency ICO. Surpassing the growth Ethereum has seen over the past few years will be very difficult, to say the least. Right now, the Ethereum price is trying to climb back to US$300. While it’s hovering around US$280 for the time being, it seems the Ethereum price may note some big gains sooner rather than later.
Ethereum Price Mounts a Strong Comeback
In a way, it is good to see the Ethereum price make a nice comeback after a few days of negative pressure across all exchanges. Last week, the Ethereum price dipped to US$195 for a brief moment, which was mainly due to Bitcoin losing significant value as well. While holders were not too pleased with this development whatsoever, it created a new buy opportunity for newcomers. After all, no one wants to buy Ethereum when it is dropping badly, as people would prefer to spend as little money as possible and get in at the lowest point.
Those days are seemingly behind us for the time being. Do keep in mind all cryptocurrency markets are still incredibly volatile right now and Ethereum is no exception whatsoever. That being said, no one can deny there is an uptrend forming on the charts as we speak. Bitcoin is poised to break out of its slump and it seems all major altcoins are preparing to do the same, with Ethereum seemingly leading the charge for the time being.
The recent 16.44% gain over the past 24 hours is quite significant. It confirms volatile price swings are still a big part of cryptocurrency markets in general. That situation will not change anytime soon, for obvious reasons. However, it also represents a solid US$40 gain for Ethereum, which means we may see ETH break the US$300 mark sooner or later. It is still far away from the all-time high of around US$400, but things are slowly heading back in that direction as we speak.
With nearly US$1 billion in 24-hour trading volume, the demand for Ethereum isn’t slowing down by any means. Considering that we will see the first part of the Metropolis hard fork deployed on the network soon, the proposed upgrades could bring forth some positive changes for the ecosystem as a whole. Whether or not this will have any effect on the Ethereum price moving forward is unknown. It is certainly possible that those changes have been factored into the current price already, although it is still too early to tell right now.
No one will be surprised to learn that Korean exchanges are the main reason for this sudden Ethereum price increase. While they value Ether slightly below the rest of the world, their combined trading volume is equal to 37% of that of the global market. Only Bitfinex is making an impact in that regard, although it is currently well behind Bithumb when it comes to volume. Similar to Bitcoin, the Chinese exchanges value Ethereum a lot lower than their Western counterparts. In China, one can buy Ethereum for US$240 right now, compared to US$280-290 in the rest of the world.
Despite the negative price pressure from China, Ethereum is doing quite well right now. It appears to be only a matter of time before the Ethereum price hits that US$300 mark again. When that happens, the big question will be whether the trend will continue or enter a sideways mode for the foreseeable future. All major currencies have had a good run throughout 2017 so far, but the momentum can’t be maintained for long. The latest price increase will need some time to become a stable floor, as the traders like to call it.
