ETH and upcoming Constantinople Hard Fork on Jan 16Project Metropolis for ETH
Stage 1 - Byzantium - Oct 16, 2017
Stage 2 - Constantinople - Jan 16, 2019
Previous action during stage 1 upgrade
On Oct 12, 2017, ETH had a price spike from $302 -> $346, with a significant increase in volume starting around 20:00 (UTC -8:00), and with the peak around 11:00 the following day, roughly a 15hr time frame. 24hr volume nearly tripled during this same period. The higher price levels held steady until Oct 15, around 22:00 when a strong selloff occurred, right before the Byzantium upgrade was performed. By the end of the sell off, the price had dropped past previous support levels to $291 by Oct 19, and $218 by Oct 23. Keep in mind this was during a strong bull market.
Recap of previous action during stage 1 upgrade
Oct 12: $302 -> $346 (+13%)
Oct 15-18: $340 -> $291 (-14%)
News
On Jan 16, developers have agreed to hard fork Ethereum. This is the second stage for Metropolis, with the goal to help Ethereum network to be more efficient, quicker, and less expensive.
Potentional price action
Can we expect similar action as we approach the upcoming Byzantium upgrade? It's a bit early to tell, but it's important to watch more closely as the date nears. If volume starts increasing, we could see a significant 10-15% price increase, and rapid selloff just before the upgrade occurs.
Currently we had a price breakout following a falling wedge (blue), as bears ran out of strength near the previous support levels around $112. You'll notice the candles got small right before the upward breakout. The breakout pushed the price all the way up to $140. A new upward trend (purple) could be forming. Moving forward, it's important to watch the price action near the lower trend line (purple), and the next line of resistance (red). If the lower trend line holds, and the line of resistance is broken, then we might see a solid upswing approaching Constantinople. Overall, I like the current the price action and I'm feeling bullish as Constantinople approaches.
Keep in mind overall market is bearish right now. But we are heading into the new year, a time when sentiment is generally positive and people are feeling good.
Byzantium
ETHUSD: Long again, after covering ETHBTC shorts in profitWe had a stint with the short side recently, a quite succesful one, but at the bottom price action suggested that strong buyers had entered the market, so I covered shorts and flipped long $ETHUSD. Now a weekly signal is active and we can resume the last portion of the monthly uptrend to its eventual top -at least for almost a year after hitting it-. Targets on chart, between 863 and 1741.22, to be achieved by the end of November, or sooner. If we don't have any bearish surprise and drop under support on chart, we will surely achieve these goals.
Ethereum's coming fork, which will grant it with some interesting features, would be only the first part of the initially dubbed Metropolis upgrade, but comes at the right time, when $BTCUSD is already surging, so it makes sense to see both of them rally together while this trend lasts. My signals indicate the longer term trends in crypto are about to end, and we might enter a lengthy bear market phase, but careful study of multiple timeframes, sentiment and fundamentals gives me confidence that there's one last, and particularly sharp rally in the cards.
Best of luck,
Ivan Labrie.
