Although no one knows for sure what the year 2018 will bring for all cryptocurrencies, it seems Ethereum is off to a good start. More specifically, the Ethereum price surpassed US$900 earlier today, although some of those gains have since been wiped out. At this rate, it seems to be a matter of time until the Ethereum price finally hits that monumental US$1,000 mark. Whether or not that will happen this month remains to be seen, though.
Ethereum Price Reaches a new All-time High
While Bitcoin is stuck in sideways and semi-bearish momentum, Ethereum is not bogged down by such issues whatsoever. In fact, Ethereum has been one of the first big gainers among the top 10 in 2018, although it remains to be seen how long this momentum can last. After all, we have seen a very steep climb over the past few hours, and it seems people are cashing out profits to drive the value back down. This is rather common in the world of cryptocurrencies, mind you, and it’s something to be wary of at all times.
In this case, the Ethereum price suddenly rose from US$732 all the way to US$914.83. While it is not uncommon to see such gains in the world of cryptocurrencies, it was obvious this momentum would be met with a correction at some point. As it happened, the Ethereum price has failed to surpass US$900 ever since reaching the new all-time high, which seems to indicate the correction is taking place as we speak.
This doesn’t mean we won’t see the Ethereum price making another run to US$900 in the next few hours and days. People are always eager to take profits, especially in the anticipation of another Bitcoin bull run. No one wants to miss out on converting altcoins to Bitcoin when they are in a position to accumulate more BTC. For some reason, the main objective of most altcoins is still to allow speculators to obtain more Bitcoin.
With nearly US$5 billion in 24-hour trading volume, it is evident today will be a good day for Ethereum regardless of the price movement. Although this currency has seen its fair share of major trading volume in the past, reaching new highs now and again is still a pretty big deal. Very few cryptocurrencies come close to US$2 billion in 24-hour trading volume these days, let alone US$5 billion. The demand to both buy and sell Ethereum is very real right now, although it remains unclear how all of this will affect the market in the long run.
The majority of Ethereum’s 24-hour trading volume hasn’t originated from an exchange most people would expect. Instead, we see Coinbene at the top of the list, followed by Binance, Bithumb, Ethfinex, and Bitfinex. It’s good to see some new names on this list to kick off 2018, as it confirms that most exchanges will gladly add ETH to their trading markets. Ethfinex and Bitfinex are very close to one another in terms of their volume, as a mere US$5,000 separates the two right now.
For the time being, it is unclear whether we can expect to see more Ethereum price gains. So far, we’ve seen gains of 13.53% and 12.97% against USD and Bitcoin respectively. Both of these figures are more than respectable, yet it will be difficult to maintain them for an extended period of time. Then again, we saw a lot of strange and interesting things happen in the world of cryptocurrency last year, and the year 2018 may very well bring us more of the same.
