The price of Ethereum (ETH) is giving strong bearish signals despite expectations of an ‘Uptober’ rally. There has been a lot of fundamentally positive Ethereum news in the past few months. However, the ETH price action keeps disappointing the holders.
On Thursday, cryptocurrencies remained sideways as the Bitcoin price remained stuck in the Monday range. Ethereum price is underperforming Bitcoin since the start of this week. Despite a 1.28% rebound in Bitcoin in the last trading session, ETH remained in a downtrend.
VanEck Ethereum Futures ETF Goes Live
This week started with the launch of VanEck Ethereum futures ETF. The first-ever ETH exchange trading fund will give investors exposure to the second-biggest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. However, it won’t translate into a direct investment in the native asset of the Ethereum smart contract blockchain.
According to the reports, Proshares, Bitwise, and other asset managers have also launched similar ETFs this week. This suggests that there is a growing interest in Ethereum by the major financial institutions.
ETH TVL Is Down 5% YTD
According to the decentralized finance (DeFi) tracking website, DeFi Llama, there has been a slight decrease in TVL on the Ethereum blockchain since the start of 2023. The following chart shows that the total locked value has plummeted around 7% in the past 9 months.
Since Ethereum price is up 36% YTD, the TVL decrease points towards an outflow of funds from the biggest blockchain platform. A deeper dive into on-chain analysis reveals that most of these finds have moved to layer 2 networks like zkSync, Scroll, Arbitrum, and Optimism for airdrop farming. In terms of TVL and network activity, Ethereum remains the biggest and most secure smart contract platform on the planet.
ETH/BTC Tanks To 15-Month Lows
The analysis of the ETH/BTC pair on the daily timeframe gives a very bearish outlook. ETH price has been in a free fall against Bitcoin since September 2022. This shows that the investors have moved their capital from Ethereum to Bitcoin during this time. This also shows a prevalent risk-off approach in the crypto markets.
There is a clear formation of the falling wedge pattern on the following chart. The ETH/BTC pair is trading at its lowest level since July 2022, which shows the weakness of the smart contract asset compared to the Bitcoin price. In case of a breakdown from this pattern, my previously forecasted level of 0.05 will be on the cards.
Ethereum Price Prediction
The short-term outlook of the ETH to USD pair is also not looking very bullish. On a 4-hour timeframe, the price is trading within the $1750-$1577 range. After a rejection from the range highs at the start of October 2023, the Ethereum price prediction is looking extremely bearish.
In the coming days, there is a strong likelihood of a retest of the range lows around $1,577. Bulls need to gain strength above the range highs to show some strength and boost investor confidence.
Source: https://www.analyticsinsight.net/ethereum-price-prediction-as-eth-btc-hits-fresh-52-week-lows/