Ethereum Fundamentals Strengthen as Staking Contract Begins to Populate

The technical and fundamental outlook for Ethereum continues to strengthen as the asset recovers from a weekend dip and heads towards its 2020 peak once again. Since the beginning of 2020, Ethereum has gained more than 250% to date whereas Bitcoin has managed just 115% in comparison. Many analysts who traditionally focus on Bitcoin are now turning to Ethereum. Josh Rager also noted the distances from their respective all-time highs;

“Let’s put this in perspective. BTC is currently only 26% away from its all-time high. ETH, on the other hand, is currently over 208% away from an all-time high price. Recently, ETH been outperformed by BTC but now looks quite bullish and has a lot of space to pump and catch up.”

Rager added that he is targeting a move up to the $700-$800 range, the next major resistance zone for ETH.

$ETH

Added a big stack of ETH at the $442 support retest

I'm serious about not missing the eventual big move up to $700 to $800

Looking for a break of the previous range above

Will play this level by level with stops below my entry pic.twitter.com/bRk3omnpTM

— Josh Rager 📈 (@Josh_Rager) November 8, 2020

 

Staking Approaches 10%

The catalyst for such a move is likely to be the launch of Phase 0, also known as Beacon Chain, which has been slated for December 1 should the amount staked reach the activating threshold. Several trackers have been launched to monitor progress on staking to the ETH 2.0 deposit contract which was deployed last week:

As $ETH price picks up steam, I’m expecting the deposits to come in faster and faster.

Slowly… then all at once. https://t.co/HvptGw9SHG

— Loma (@LomahCrypto) November 9, 2020

Currently, there are just under 49,000 ETH staked according to the ETH 2.0 Launchpad, which is just over 9.3% of the total 524,288 required for genesis of the new blockchain. With $22 million of ETH currently staked, analysts have suggested that this number will likely accelerate in December with the Phase 0 launch.

Now $22,000,000 of ETH has been staked in $ETH 2.0 deposit contract…

Expected staked amount to increase greatly on the 1st of December…

Scarcity increasing on exchanges and bears just seem so useless this year.

$600+ is my target before end of year.

— Cactus (@TheCryptoCactus) November 9, 2020

ETH Price Outlook

After posting a huge green weekly candle, ETH was trading at just over $450 during Monday morning trading. It failed to top its 2020 high of $480 over the weekend and slid back to $425 on Saturday, however, it has made a 6.5% recovery since then to start the week on a bullish note. Resistance currently resides at that early September peak, but beyond that, prices could surge quickly to the next level of resistance which is around $550. Support looks fairly strong at $420, but things appear to be going in one direction for Ethereum at the moment.