Summary
- Ethereum’s hold on NFT and DeFi will provide growth impetus.
- Institutional adoption of Ether has slowed down, but new purchases may be influenced by strong market performance.
Ether prices were once more trading below the $1,900 mark, after having risen marginally by 0.11% in 24 hours to trade at $1,833 at press time. The cryptocurrency has experienced a spike in its price since yesterday. This has mainly been caused by 6.1% in the past seven days, but the $1,900 territory remains elusive. However, its recent market moves may fuel a break past the barrier.
Institutional adoption to fuel growth
The institutional acquisition of ETH has slowed down, and no major purchases have been announced over the past two weeks. However, confidence in cryptocurrency remains intact.
Cryptocurrencies yesterday bagged another win, following the announcement by PayPal that it would enable payment on the platform using digital assets. The move will allow payments by Americans and will apply to 29 million vendors.
PayPal’s latest move follows an earlier decision by the company to allow cryptocurrency holders to convert the assets to fiat currency on its platform. Being among the world’s largest financial payments platforms, PayPal’s decision will be a major boost for Ethereum and other digital currencies.
In a related development, recently, Visa announced that it would now be settling transactions in digital currencies. The USDC currency will be used to handle transactions using the ETH blockchain. This will be more beneficial to Ethereum as it will increase its value in the market.
The oldest art project in crypto globally, Curio Cards, has recently been listed on OpenSea, a marketplace for NFTs. Curio Cards’ art of a cartoon raccoon will be the initial art in crypto to be minted on the Ethereum network.
Nuvei, a payment firm, has recently launched support for nearly forty digital currencies, in another major win for cryptocurrencies. Online traders would be able to transact through these digital assets on Nuvei’s platform. Additionally, the traders will be able to use digital currencies to make and receive payments including using ETH and BTC. High adoption rates for cryptocurrencies will propel their value higher.
AirBaltic, a Latvian airline, announced the acceptance of Ethereum for air ticket payment on Monday. After having pioneered digital currency payments following its acceptance of Bitcoin in 2014, the Airline has now added altcoins.
Liquidity Protocol, a company that offers interest-free loans on the Ethereum blockchain, has announced plans to scale up its operations due to increased demand. The company has secured $6 million in funding and will now focus on its expansion, scheduled for next month. This underscores Ethereum’s growing dominance in decentralized finance (DeFi).
The setbacks
In another instance of fraud claims involving cryptocurrencies, Montana, a state in the United States, has recently given an order to end and hold back Forsage for its investment venture that is based on Ethereum. Regulators have accused Forsage of being a pyramid scheme. Several complaints had been filed by the state’s residents concerning Forsage, whose operations have gone against the Securities Act in Montana.
In another development, ConsenSys, a development software company for blockchain and an ETH studio, recently announced a new NFT sidechain called Palm. The company’s move is aimed at enhancing efficiency in the NFT segment, which has gained much popularity in recent weeks. The company claims that Palm protocol is more efficient than Layer 1 Ethereum.
ETH/USD technical outlook
ETH price will find first support at $1,721. The second support will be established at $1,790. The Relative Strength Index (RSI) is 54. Therefore, the bulls could push the price to the first resistance at $1,861. A further push could see the crypto-asset break into the $1,900s to test the second resistance at $1,929.
