According to Nomics, ether’s price fell roughly $50 in eight hours, seeing its steepest decline during a $30 fall between 9:00 UTC and 10:00 UTC. Ether’s trading volume ballooned in that time, rising from $667.6 million to $1.58 billion.
Ether (ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, fell by a historic 33 percent – or roughly $60 – in early morning UTC trading.
Ether fell from close to $200 to about $132 as of press time over a 24-hour period, according to CoinDesk’s price index, marking the asset’s biggest drop in percentage terms in its five-year history as of 13:30 UTC.
As of press time, volume had dropped to $253.7 million. However, according to Etherscan, there are more than 100,000 pending transactions currently on the network, a sign of high activity. There are on average around 63,000 pending transactions, according to the site.
Ether’s price began to rebound in early-afternoon UTC trading, rising to $143, for a 24-hour drop of 27.7 percent shortly after the publication of this article.
In terms of absolute numbers, ether saw greater declines during the 2018 bear market. At its peak, ether was worth around $1,400 and saw price swings of several hundred dollars.
Thursday’s drop comes amid broader market turmoil.
Bitcoin fell to below $6,000 for the first time since May 2019, and the U.S. stock market opened to massive losses triggering a temporary trading halt within 10 minutes. As of press time, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 1,700 points.
Much of Thursday’s drops centers around continued uncertainty related to COVID-19, the respiratory disease currently classified by the World Health Organization as a global pandemic.
Ether Rises to 28-Day High Amid Positive Sentiment for Coming ‘Eth 2.0’ Upgrade
Ether, the native cryptocurrency of the Ethereum network, has recorded its single biggest daily gain in over 20 days amid growing confidence in the platform, experts say.Ether (ETH) has been performing exceptionally well, thanks in large part to an April 6 close which saw the price finish up by 20 percent – its highest single day gain since March 13. ETH is currently up 17.25 percent over a 24-hour period having lost some ground in the early Asian hours of trading.
Industry experts told CoinDesk the rise can likely be attributed to growing confidence in a planned system-wide upgrade known as Eth 2.0 slated for July 2020.
The 2.0 upgrade, often called Serenity, promises higher transaction throughput and a new security model under proof-of-stake (PoS). Eth 2.0 has been in development since 2015 but had failed to gain traction due to the highly technical expertise required to pursue it, until now.
«From a developer standpoint, Ethereum is the most popular blockchain where most of the smart contract and Dapp activity occurs,» says Damien Brener, founder and CEO of OpenZeppelin, a leading security audit firm for Ethereum.
«People are realizing that Ethereum’s network effects especially around community and composability (ETH smart contracts interacting with each other) are stronger than they thought, which might lead to increased trust in the platform and thus higher prices,» Brener added.
Given the 5-year development cycle for the Ethereum network, not a single challenger cryptocurrency has made a dent in Ether’s leading position according to Jehan Chu, co-founder and managing partner at Hong Kong-based blockchain investment and trading firm Kenetic, who echoed Brener’s sentiments.
«Ethereum continues to be the veteran number 2 coin in crypto, and its recent price surge demonstrates traders’ long-term belief in its market position,» Chu said.
«Price aside, the real story is how Ethereum continues to march towards Eth 2.0 and resolving legitimate criticisms around network speed and scalability. In today’s environment, the name of the game is survival, and no protocol and developer community has survived at this high level better than Ethereum,» Chu added.
