Ethereum gained the upper hand against the dollar Tuesday, rising to its highest level in a month as prices overcame a series of technical hurdles.
Ether Price Levels
Ether rose sharply in early-week trade, as the bulls overcame a difficult trading range en route to new monthly highs. ETH/USD broke above a series of technical hurdles, including $315 and $325, to reach its current price level of around $334. Prices briefly traded as high as $344 earlier in the day.
Ethereum also rallied against bitcoin, with ETH/BTC reaching a high of around 0.05480. Traders made multiple attempts to overtake that level and climb above 0.05500 but were sent back on two successive occasions.
ETH/BTC was last seen trading around 0.04928 for a decline of 2.7%. Technical traders are looking for a clean break above the 0.052 resistance to confirm further upside.
The Case for Ethereum
Ethereum may very well be the most unique cryptocurrency from a value perspective, according to economist Harry Dent.
“Of the many cryptos, I see Ethereum as the most credible as it makes creating new blockchains easier,” Dent said in a quote obtained by Forbes, “It advances the whole industry, and I obviously think this is a major trend, not just a near-term bubble, which it is.”
As Ky Trang Ho rightly notes, Ethereum isn’t limited by the number of tokens it can create. In addition to being a nascent unit of exchange, the ether network has emerged as platform of choice for developers to launch their own tokens. Ethereum will remain the platform of choice for the foreseeable future as developers latch on to smart contracts.
The strong majority of the ICOs covered by Hacked were built using Ethereum. Even J.P. Morgan Chase built its advanced blockchain technology Quorum on top of the ether protocol.
Parity Looks to Free Up Stuck Ether
Ethereum platform Parity Technologies announced Monday it would deploy more resources into freeing up some $162 million worth of ether tokens contained in multi-signature wallets. The funds were blocked last week after a novice hacker made it impossible for some of Parity’s consumers to access their ether funds.
It is estimated that around 587 multi-sig wallets have been locked out since Nov. 6. Parity’s official audit found a total of 513,774.16 ether frozen as a result of the gaff.
In a blog post issued on Monday, Parity foudner Jutta Steiner said, “We are endeavouring to find a solution as soon as possible.”
She added: “We have spent the last few days rigorously examining the events. While it is too early to decide on a fixed solution, EIP156 has been discussed for a significant time and has drawn support from various directions in the community. The team is working on a broadly accepted solution that will unblock the funds.”
The team expects to deliver a detailed result of their investigation in the next few days. It is unclear how the organization will handle the security breach. Although not entirely similar, cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex last year chose to socialize its losses after $72 million worth of bitcoin was stolen.
Disclaimer: The writer owns bitcoin, Ethereum and other cryptocurrency. He holds investment positions in the coins, but does not engage in short-term or day-trading.
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