Category: Ethereum

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Crypto News Ethereum Filecoin Market Analysis Monero Trading

Top 3 Coins to Watch Today: ETH, FIL, XMR – June 7 Trading Analysis

Let’s take a closer look at today’s altcoins showing breakout signals. We’ll explain what the coin is, then dive into the trading charts and provide some analysis to help you decide.

1. Ethereum (ETH)

Ethereum ETH is a decentralised open-source blockchain system that features its own cryptocurrency, Ether. ETH works as a platform for numerous other cryptocurrencies, as well as for the execution of decentralised smart contracts. Ethereum’s own purported goal is to become a global platform for decentralised applications, allowing users from all over the world to write and run software that is resistant to censorship, downtime and fraud.

ETH Price Analysis

At the time of writing, ETH is ranked the 2nd cryptocurrency globally and the current price is US$1,858. Let’s take a look at the chart below for price analysis:

Source: TradingView

ETH has dropped 53% from its April highs and is now consolidating above many swing lows formed in summer 2021, near $1,700.

An inefficiently traded area could provide the closest near-term resistance. This area is between $1,852 and $1,924. 

If the price stays nearby, it’s more likely to serve resistance. This zone is near the June monthly open, contains the 18 EMA, and is above the 9 EMA.

A break through this level may target bears’ stops above the series of swing highs up to $2,164. The weekly chart shows inefficient trading in this area. It overlaps with swing lows from January and February 2022 and is near the 40 EMA.

If the price does rally this high, it could signal the start of a more significant bullish shift. This rally could reach as high as $2,458. March’s lows and inefficient trading on the weekly chart align with this level, yet the price has not indicated that it will go this high.

Many swing lows near $1,700 provide a tempting target for bears. Bulls will likely wait for a stop run below these lows before considering an entry. Inefficient trading on the daily chart from $1,687 to $1,616 could mark the sweep’s bottom.

Bulls should be cautious. A liquidation cascade and the current bearish conditions could cause a more significant drop. 

If bears do overpower bulls, the next higher-timeframe support might be near $1,292. This area shows inefficient trading on the weekly chart. It also overlaps with 2017’s cycle high and would sweep most bulls’ stops.

2. Filecoin (FIL)

Filecoin FIL is a decentralised storage system that aims to “store humanity’s most important information”. The project was first described back in 2014 as an incentive layer for the Interplanetary File System (IPFS), a peer-to-peer storage network. Filecoin is an open protocol backed by a blockchain that records commitments made by the network’s participants, with transactions using FIL, the blockchain’s native currency. The blockchain is based on both proof-of-replication and proof-of-spacetime.

FIL Price Analysis

At the time of writing, FIL is ranked the 40th cryptocurrency globally and the current price is US$7.49. Let’s take a look at the chart below for price analysis:

Source: TradingView

FIL has dropped 77% from its April highs. It’s now 97% down from its March 2021 all-time high. 

The price is currently in a small consolidation range. This range’s lower lows suggest bearishness. 

A rally near $8.36 could set the stage for another move lower. This level would provide a run on bears’ stops above the last daily swing high and is above the June monthly open. 

A break through this level could reach between $9.47 and $10.58. This zone shows inefficient trading on the weekly and daily charts. It also contains the 40 EMA. Relatively equal highs at the bottom of this zone mark bears’ stops. These stops provide bulls with an attractive target.

Bulls should be careful, however. The price is trending lower, and the current market conditions are bearish. Yet a consolidation near $7.63 could provide at least short-term support. This consolidation followed the last drop lower.

Chaotic price action below this level makes precise levels impossible to determine. Still, bulls could look for support near old swing highs formed in late 2019 near $6.74. 

Slightly lower, an area near $5.48 could also cause the formation of a bullish setup. This area is around the midpoint of significant consolidation. It’s also near the origin of 2020’s rally.

3. Monero (XMR)

Monero XMR allows transactions to take place privately and with anonymity. Even though it’s commonly thought that BTC can conceal a person’s identity, it’s often easy to trace payments back to their original source because blockchains are transparent. On the other hand, XMR is designed to obscure senders and recipients alike through the use of advanced cryptography. The team behind Monero says privacy and security are their biggest priorities, with ease of use and efficiency coming second. It aims to provide protection to all users irrespective of how technologically competent they are.

XMR Price Analysis

At the time of writing, XMR is ranked the 27th cryptocurrency globally and the current price is US$190.56. Let’s take a look at the chart below for price analysis:

Source: TradingView

XMR swept 2022’s range high in April, then dropped 60% to sweep its range low. The price is currently near the range’s midpoint.

Since the price is in the middle of its range, there is no clear direction for the next move. Wednesday’s event could generate volatility. This volatility may create better hints for the next significant move’s direction.

The June open, near $197.70, could provide resistance during a retest. This area saw distribution before last week’s downward move. It’s also near the low end of early May’s inefficient trading. 

Slightly higher, $212.00 may also provide resistance. Before May’s sharp drop, the price consolidated in this area. It also accumulated here in early April.

A strong rally might reach over early May’s consolidation to $229.80. This rally would run bears’ stops and cross over the 2022 yearly open. The weekly chart also shows an inefficiently traded area around this price.

The price is currently near possible support at $190.10. This area contains the 18 EMA and formed the base of late May’s rally. It should hold if a significant bullish move is next.

If this level breaks, bulls could look for possible support near $155.10. The price may want to run bulls’ stops below May’s swing low while staying above May 12’s swing low. This area saw significant buying in January and February.

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Where to Buy or Trade Altcoins?

These coins have high liquidity on Binance Exchange, so that could help with trading on AUD/USDT/BTC pairs. And if you’re looking at buying and HODLing cryptos, then Swyftx Exchange is an easy-to-use popular choice in Australia.

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Crypto News Ethereum

Ethereum’s Oldest PoW Testnet Ready for Merge ‘Dress Rehearsal’

Ethereum’s oldest testnet, Ropsten, is ready to run through The Merge, a major upgrade that will turn Ethereum into a proof-of-stake (PoS) network.

As per a recent blog post from Ethereum.org, Ropsten will have its own Merge, which will give developers the first insights into how the real Merge will look on the Ethereum mainnet.

The Ropsten testnet launched its beacon chain on May 31, according to a tweet from Ethereum core developer Tim Beiko:

Progress Slow But Steady

The Ropsten testnet will use valueless ETH to run transactions, smart contracts and applications during its time on the PoS ecosystem. This will allow developers to have a broader notion of the possible results and assess potential problems for Ethereum’s mainnet:

However, Beiko said that developers and nodes will need to wait for two things: for Ropsten’s beacon chain to activate the Bellatrix upgrade, and that the Terminal Total Difficulty (TTD) is chosen to trigger the transition.

If you run a node, are a validator, or an infra/tooling provider, this is the time to familiarise yourself with the transition and (better late than never!) what a post-merge node is like.

Tim Beiko, core developer, Ethereum

Ethereum’s Merge Getting Closer

Ethereum’s transition from PoW (Proof-of-Work) to PoS has been slow but steady, and developers are now getting closer to making the dream a reality. A month ago, developers created a shadow fork to test the effects of the transition under Ethereum’s current mainnet conditions.

While many in the ETH community consider this a step closer to reaching a PoS ecosystem, a lot of people remain demotivated due to the constant delays in Ethereum’s transition, which was supposed to have been ready years ago.

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Ethereum Gas

Ethereum Gas Fees Sink Below $3, Its Lowest Level in 10 Months

Ethereum gas fees are really low in the past few weeks, singing below US$3 per transaction, according to recent data by market intelligence firm Santiment.

ETH Gas Fees Reach July 2021 Levels

Gas fees on the Ethereum have been at their lowest levels since July 2021, when fees would cost around $3 to $5 per transaction for a few days. As such, gas fees have been declining since mid-February of 2022.

Santiment said that low gas fees correlate to lower network activity. A median-size transaction can reach a high of just $4 in gas fees. This is a notable drop considering five months ago we were used to seeing three or four-digit transactions costing 20, 50, and even 100 USD in gas fees.

Source: Santiment

Santiment also tapped into DAI, an Ethereum-backed and second-largest stablecoin in the crypto by market, saying that DAI’s currently velocity supports the notion of market participants having “little interest to do anything.”

Gas fees for NFT sales on OpenSea are also significantly lower —the cost of an OpenSea sale could reach a maximum of $10.63, and $10.20 on the lower end. Gas fees on Ethereum-linked protocols such as Uniswap are also on the same level.

Layer-2 Solutions Battling For Lower Transaction Fees

Before reaching these levels, Ethereum layer-2 solutions were already offering cheap gas prices. Over a month ago, Arbitrum, Ethereum’s largest rollup solution introduced Nitro, a major update that seeks to reduce gas fees by half on the Arbitrum network.

Meanwhile, StarkNet, another rollup solution announced lower gas fees through the use of Zero-Knowledge rollups, making transaction costs 100x lower than Layer-1s

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Crypto Staking Ethereum Markets NFTs

Ethereum Transaction Volume Down 80% Amid Decreasing NFT Interest

Crypto analytics firm IntoTheBlock reports that Ethereum transaction volume is down 80 percent from the same period last year, due in large part to plummeting interest in NFTs. 

Other important metrics, such as fees collected and daily active addresses, mirror the drop in transaction volume.

This pattern is similar to what was observed during the last bear market where activity declined significantly across the entire crypto market.

Interest in NFTs Drops, Prices Follow

Following the huge NFT hype of the early part of 2022, interest has since declined enormously with Google search data showing a 75 percent reduction in searches for the term NFT, contributing significantly to the drop in transaction volume on Ethereum.

NFT search volume. Source: IntoTheBlock

Similarly, NFT prices crashed in May with most collections recording decreases of at least 50 percent, significantly more than ETH itself, which dropped about 30 percent over the same timeframe.

ETH HODLers Accumulate During Crashes

As ETH transactions and its price have plunged, long-term HODLers (addresses that’ve been holding ETH for over a year) have started to accumulate and now hold over 50 percent of total ETH supply. It’s the first time this mark has been reached since 2020.

ETH HODLers marshal their resources. Source: IntoTheBlock

In the latter part of 2021 and into early 2022, HODLers had been selling. But they’re now buying the dip with a view to maximising their gains when (they hope) the market recovers.

ETH 2.0 Staking Grows

According to IntoTheBlock, the single largest holder of ETH is currently the Ethereum 2.0 staking contract, which now holds over 7.84 million ETH. 

Of course, HODLers of many other cryptocurrencies also have the option of staking and earning rewards – for example, late last year Swyftx became the first Australian-based exchange to offer staking for the popular Solana blockchain.

In the Australian context, over 80 percent of crypto investors say they’re HODLers, which is comparable to figures from many other parts of the world.

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Crypto News Ethereum Loopring NFTs

GameStop Launches its Own ETH-Based Wallet for NFTs and Crypto

Electronics retail giant GameStop has launched a cryptocurrency and NFT wallet to pivot into the digital assets world. The wallet is an Ethereum-based browser extension – similar to MetaMask – and is available for download at the Chrome Web Store.

Gamestop NFT Wallet

NFT Marketplace to Launch in July

The wallet is self-custodial, allowing users to store and transfer several cryptocurrencies. It will also support NFT trading on GameStop’s upcoming NFT marketplace, expected to launch in early July.

As Ethereum transactions are synonymous with expensive gas fees, GameStop has opted to integrate an ETH layer-2 protocol called Loopring, which leverages ZK (zero-knowledge) technology to make transactions cheaper and faster:

Crypto News Australia reported in March that Loopring had surged over 50 percent after GameStop launched a beta version of its Loopring-powered NFT marketplace.

GameStop Sales Improve Year-on-Year

Despite the overall bearish sentiment in the crypto market, GameStop is still planning to offer crypto products for its gamers. The company’s Q4 financial results revealed it had generated net sales of just over US$6 billion for the fiscal year, compared to $5.090 billion for fiscal year 2020.

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Ethereum NFTs Polygon Social media

Twitter Rival ‘Lens Frens’ Launches on Polygon, Decentralised NFT Social Platform

Aave has launched a decentralised, NFT-based Twitter competitor on the Polygon network. Lens Protocol is designed to power social media apps such as Lens Frens to rival centralised giants like Twitter.

Lens Protocol is essentially a decentralised social graph that utilises NFTs stored within a crypto wallet to power social media platforms. Users retain ownership of their content, and anyone can build on the protocol.

Faster, Cheaper, Greener

Lens utilises the Polygon network, a sidechain scaling solution for Ethereum. Polygon enables faster, cheaper, and less energy-intensive transactions than Ethereum’s own mainnet, making it more viable for a social network built on a potentially large number of NFT assets:

‘Content Creators Should Own Their Audiences’

Lens Protocol was first teased in June 2021 when Aave founder and CEO Stani Kulechov tweeted: “Since [Square CEO and then-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey] is going to build Aave on Bitcoin, Aave should build Twitter on Ethereum.”

Kulekhov added:

We believe that content creators should own their audiences in a permissionless fashion, where anyone can build new user experiences by using the same on-chain social graph and data.

Kulechov went on to outline his mission statement: “We wanted to create a social media protocol, or essentially a social graph, and create these profiles on the network by tracking relationships on the network and creating an unauthorised way for content to be distributed between creator and audience.”

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Crypto News Crypto Staking Ethereum

ETH 2.0 Proof-of-Stake Merge Date Set for June This Year

Ethereum’s public testnet, known as Ropsten, is in the final stages of preparation to merge its existing proof-of-work (PoW) chain with the new proof-of-stake (PoS) chain, as revealed by a pull request submitted to the Ethereum GitHub depository on May 18. 

The test merge, expected to take place next month, is regarded as a major milestone in Ethereum’s migration from a PoW chain to a PoS chain. This news comes after a delay to the mainnet merge, which was pushed back to some time in Q3 of this year, having previously been expected to happen in June.

Code Updates Prepare Testnet For Merge

The pull request, which was merged into the code base on May 19 by Ethereum Foundation DevOps engineer Parithosh Jayanthi, added the configuration files required by Ropsten testnet clients to create a genesis version of the consensus layer, the first step in merging the PoW execution layer and the PoS consensus layer.

A tweet from Ethereum researcher Terence Tsao indicates the genesis version of the consensus layer will be created on May 30, with the full merge expected to take place around June 8:

Bug Bounty Programs Merged, Rewards Increased

As the Ethereum merge has neared, the original PoW execution layer codebase and the new PoS consensus layer codebase – once two largely separate projects – have become increasingly interconnected, prompting the Ethereum Foundation to merge its two bug bounty programs into a single unified program. 

This move reflects the reality that the two codebases are close to becoming a single entity and also incentivises bug hunters to identify bugs relating to the integration of the two codebases, as Ethereum Foundation developer Fredrik Svantes explained:

As the Execution Layer and Consensus Layer become more and more interconnected, it is increasingly valuable to combine the security efforts of these layers. There are already multiple efforts being organised by client teams and the community to further increase knowledge and expertise across the two layers. Unifying the Bounty Program will further increase visibility and coordination efforts on identifying and mitigating vulnerabilities.

Fredrik Svantes, developer, Ethereum Foundation

The Foundation has also significantly increased the  rewards on offer, including a maximum US$500,000 paid in ETH or DAI. That’s a tenfold increase over the previous maximum reward for bugs identified on the consensus layer, and double that for bugs found on the execution layer.

The merging of the Ropsten public testnet follows the implementation of the mainnet ‘shadow fork’ last month, suggesting the mainnet merge may be coming in the next few months.

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Bitcoin Crypto News Ethereum Investing Markets Solana Terra

Crypto Retail Investors Drop to 24% of Volume, Indicator Still Showing ‘Extreme Fear’

Retail investors are deserting the crypto market, with just over three-quarters of Q1 2022 trading volume at Coinbase coming from institutional investors, according to the exchange’s most recent letter to shareholders.

Support for BTC, ETH Holds Up Amid Terra Bloodbath

In spite of the past week’s crypto market downturn precipitated by the collapse of Terra’s $LUNA and its UST stablecoin, institutional investors are banking on the flagship cryptocurrency Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum rival Solana (SOL).

Latest analysis as per Bitcoin’s Fear & Greed Index. Source: alternative.me

According to CoinShares, BTC investment products saw US$45 million in inflows over seven days as assets under management fell to levels “seen during the lows in sentiment at the beginning of the year”.

Negative sentiment towards Ethereum contributed to outflows of US$12.5 million in the same period, bringing ETH outflows year-to-date to US$207 million, or 0.8 percent of assets under management.

Solana’s SOL the Sole Altcoin with ‘Substantial Inflows’

Last week, Ethereum rival Solana’s SOL was the “sole altcoin to see any substantial inflows”, totalling US$1.9 million.

With the price of bitcoin having shrunk more than one-third and the overall crypto market cap down by 38 percent, falling prices have led to unrealised losses for at least 40 percent of bitcoin investors.

Flying in the face of market gloom, the richest bitcoin whale splurged US$90 million on BTC in less than a month. Last week, blockchain intelligence platform IntoTheBlock disclosed that bitcoin whales collectively added to their holdings amid the crypto sell-off, with just over 50 percent of BTC holders still in profit.

Little over a month ago, US$250 billion was wiped from crypto’s market cap amid a welter of leveraged liquidations and general fear and uncertainty. After the storm comes the correction, as witnessed seven months ago when a US$840 million liquidity flush drained nearly US$400 billion from the market.

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Bitcoin Crypto News Ethereum Vitalik Buterin

Vitalik Buterin Opens Up About Ethereum Plans for Web3

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin took to Twitter this week to air a series of contradictions he sees between the direction of the network he created and his personal beliefs and values.

In the lengthy thread posted on May 17, Buterin discussed issues he characterises as “open contradictions in his thoughts and values” that revolve around Ethereum’s stability and security and its cultural and political impact.

Admiration for Bitcoin’s Stability

Buterin’s first point highlighted his admiration for Bitcoin, in particular its long-term stability, saying he’d like to see Ethereum attain a similar level of stability. To do so, however, would require significant short-term change and instability – something Buterin rightly sees as a contradiction:


Buterin Airs Views on Security, Decentralisation and Democracy

Buterin mused on the tensions between his personal beliefs and core crypto values such as decentralisation, security, and networks’ independence from specific individuals.

While expressing his love for decentralisation and democracy, he said that on a personal level he often finds himself siding with the views of intellectual elites over the opinion of the masses. 

And while his preference for Ethereum is to reduce reliance on individuals and build “fixed systems that can stand the test of time”, Buterin also admitted his appreciation for people he describes as “live players”, those who make change happen.


He also described a contradiction between his goal to make Ethereum a highly secure layer 1 network that can survive “truly extreme circumstances” and his knowledge that many important apps currently running on the network have far weaker security than he would ever deem appropriate for Ethereum itself.

Grudging Acknowledgement of NFT Craze

Buterin confessed his dislike of the NFT “art” craze exemplified by Bored Ape Yacht Club, but acknowledged such collections have played a role in funding some of the more interesting DAO and decentralised governance experiments. An example he cited was the AssangeDAO to assist Julian Assange’s legal defence, largely funded by the CypherPunks NFT community.


Buterin said that while he wanted more countries to adopt crypto, he had concerns that the kind of governments most likely to fully embrace the technology are less likely to allow freedom to flourish:


Unlike many crypto founders who shy away from difficult topics and go all in on self-promotion, Buterin is prepared to discuss flaws he sees in the Ethereum ecosystem. For example, earlier this month he shared his belief that gas fees on Ethereum layer-2 protocols should be under 10 cents to be considered “truly acceptable”.

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Crypto News Ethereum Terra

Lido Finance Warns Leveraged Traders as Staked ETH Loses Peg

Lido Finance has warned leveraged traders they are at risk of liquidations as a surge in ‘Staked Ethereum’ (stETH) redemptions has caused it to lose its 1:1 peg with Ethereum:

Discount Hits 5% Before Dropping Back to 3%

When Lido sent out its warnings, the discount was 4.2 percent and rose as high as 5 percent before dropping again. As it stands, 1 ETH can be exchanged for 1.0248 stETH through the Curve protocol, which means it is currently trading at a 3 percent discount relative to Ethereum.

stETH/ETH Chart, Source: Coinmarketcap.com

Surge Follows Terra’s Lost Peg

The StETH price surged as people who have staked it in the Anchor lending protocol, which runs on the Terra blockchain, rushed to retrieve it on May 13 after the algorithmic stablecoin TerraUSD (UST) lost its peg to the US dollar.

Terra had also been paused twice, signifying an attempt by the team to save the network’s native assets as UST lost its peg. The fall of Terra has had widespread effects on the entire crypto industry – in this case, while the network was halted it would have been impossible for Lido users to recover their stETH.

Until stETH is trading at a discount, holders can redeem their stETH for more ETH compared to their initial deposits, meaning there would not be enough ETH in the pool to back all holders’ stETH.