Ethereum generally missed out on last week’s big Bitcoin induced crypto rally as gains were way less than other digital assets such as Litecoin or Bitcoin Cash. ETH has woken up today though and is currently over 10% up as it approaches critical resistance levels.

ETH Nears Five Month High

From around $165 this time yesterday, Ethereum has woken up and surged to just below $185 over the past few hours. It is finally back at prices in mid-November before the big capitulation that resulted in markets falling to their lowest levels for 18 months.

Daily volume has increased to $8.7 billion which is the highest ETH has seen for over a year. Ethereum market cap is approaching $20 billion which has enabled it to double the gap to third placed XRP which hasn’t done much at all recently. Ethereum is reaching a critical stage though as it approaches the 200 day moving average which is traditionally a very strong level of resistance. //twitter.com/ScienceGuy9489/status/75176193 The next major level of resistance if Ethereum does not pull back at the 200 MA is $200. It is a big ask but if the bulls maintain buying pressure on Ethereum it could surge all the way up to $250 in a short space of time;

[7 Apr] /USD was under the resistance zone on 5th Apr and we wanted it to retest the target#1 ($183). Today, it has done it. Now, it'll face some resistance until $200. Once that's crossed, the target#2 of $149 would be highly probable. — Ⓜ️ Mihir (@RhythmicAnalyst)

Fundamentals Still Good

Ethereum has taken a bashing in the media lately as rival platforms EOS and Tron surpass it in terms of active dApps. However, the second largest crypto asset on the globe is not in its death throes, in fact quite the opposite. Industry expert Anthony Sassano has compared Ethereum vital statistics from the last time it broke above $150 back in May 2017.

Ether first hit $150 on May 22nd 2017 – how has the Ethereum network grown since then? — sassal.eth/acc 🦇🔊 (@sassal0x)

The growth of the network is plain to see here with pretty much every metric substantially higher than it was two years ago. Prices aside, the fundamentals of this network are still very strong but it should be noted that Ethereum did not really have any real competitors back in early 2017. No EOS, Tron or Cardano in May 2017, the , and Ethereum Classic was seventh.

According to almost half a billion dollars worth of ETH is now locked up in decentralized applications. Maker DAO’s DAI holds the most with around 2.2 million ETH, with Ethereum Name Service (ENS) coming in second.

Ethereum has a long way to go and is still at the very early stages of development. Co-founder Vitalik Buterin has touted the Serenity upgrade as way to move Ethereum forward to become a next generation blockchain platform. The long awaited scaling solutions and the launch of Ethereum 2.0 will no doubt propel the platform back into contention with its rivals.

In the meantime traders are looking at a push towards $200 again but considering Ethereum’s recent performance they may have to wait a little longer.

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