The last few days have seen some extreme movements in the cryptocurrency market. And while almost all cryptocurrencies are trading in red right now, it has been a roller coaster ride for Ethereum, which touched record highs of over $1,400 and is now trading at a little over $1,100.
Ethereum has grown rapidly in past few months as its platform continues to increase in popularity and the number of transactions on the network keeps on increasing. We believe that the cryptomarket shall continue to witness such wild swings as regulators all over the world keep coming up with new rules in order to try to exercise some control on the cryptomarket and regulate cryptocurrency trading.
However, in the long run, the cryptocurrencies that hold real value and the network that help make processes efficient shall be the ones to survive all kinds of crash and Ethereum (ETH) is one of them.
Why Ethereum Shall March Higher in 2018
There has been a lot of optimism surrounding Ethereum and it is not without reason. Bitcoin and Ethereum are the two most popular cryptocurrencies and this has resulted in the BTC price and ETH price hitting stratospheric levels. Although Ethereum helps in online payments without the need for a third party, just like Bitcoin, it comes with immense possibilities in the near future.
Ethereum introduced “smart contracts,” which is a way to carry out actions defined by rules in the contract. A smart contract is simply a piece of code that defines the conditions all parties using the contract agree to.
This technology gives rise to a lot of possibilities for new decentralized businesses without any dependence on an expensive third party. So, the Ethereum platform supports a number of decentralized applications that can be run without the need for a central authority.
It is the utility of Ethereum as a decentralized platform running smart contracts that holds immense potential and shall make the platform and its native token Ether more valuable in the coming days.
The platform is already attracting more projects and interest from corporations that want to take advantage of smart contracts. Big banks and tech giants like JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM), Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), and Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) have come together and are part of a consortium called the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA) focused on developing applications using the Ethereum blockchain.
Ethereum soared last month after a group of big banks announced new projects on its blockchain. Banks led by UBS Group AG (NYSE:UBS) announced a data quality control project on Ethereum’s blockchain.
It is not only corporations taking advantage of this technology. Ethereum is an open source blockchain that can be used by anyone as a decentralized ledger. And there are a number of use-cases that point toward a higher Ethereum price forecast in 2018.
Fundraising and initial coin offerings (ICOs) are the largest real-world use-cases for Ethereum. Billions of dollars have been raised via ICOs since last year and many of these are built on the Ethereum protocol.
In the field of payments and lending, many Ethereum-based lending solutions are being introduced, which means that people across the globe can gain access to funds even without a bank account. In the gaming arena, many successful companies have started to include tokens in their games to fund their gaming ecosystem. All these developments signal bullish trends for an Ethereum price forecast in 2018 despite the current cryptocurrency crash.
Ethereum (ETH) Price Forecast for January 2018
Given the above-mentioned reasons, we are bullish about our ETH price forecast for January 2018 and the coming year. We believe that ETH is likely to go higher and be in the range of $1,280 – $1,300 by the end of January 2018.
Judging the potential of the Ethereum platform, Ethereum co-creator Steven Nerayoff had said that ETH could cross $3,000 this year, as we had written about earlier. He added that the number of projects on the Ethereum platform has been going up and the ecosystem is attracting billions of dollars. There are 10-times more projects this year than last year.
The technology behind Ethereum has a lot of real-world use that has yet to be tapped. Although the cryptomarket crash has impacted the ETH price at the moment, it is unlikely to stay there for long. BTC and Ripple XRP prices are likely to be more volatile as there are serious concerns regarding the underlying value and ability to overcome the challenges of the respective ecosystems. However, ETH appears to be in a much better position.
Scaling Solutions to Strengthen Ethereum in 2018
The media has been covering critical issues like traffic congestion, scalability, rising transaction fees, and energy-intensive mining over the past few months. Ethereum has been developing solutions to overcome these challenges and this bodes well for the Ethereum price forecast in 2018.
The community has introduced certain software updates that would help the network achieve long-term scalability. Initiatives like “Casper” and “Plasma” shall bear results this year and help the Ethereum network handle a huge number of transactions in seconds, at lower costs.
In a recent article on TechCrunch, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said he expects 2018 to be the “year of action” for Ethereum. This is what he had to say:
It will be the year where all of the ideas around scalability, Plasma, proof-of-stake, and privacy that we have painstakingly worked on and refined over the last four years are finally going to turn into real, live working code that you can play around in a highly mature form in some cases on testnets, and in some key cases even on the public mainnet. Everyone in the Ethereum space recognizes that the world is watching, and we are ready to deliver.
(Source: “Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has left VC firm Fenbushi Capital,” TechCrunch, January 15, 2018.)
Hence, we can look forward to a faster and cheaper network this year, which would make the Ethereum blockchain more popular.
Analyst Take
With the staggering rise in popularity of the Ethereum blockchain, the ETH price forecast for January 2018 is upbeat and the Ether price may test $1,500 levels in the first half of 2018. As blockchain technology gains momentum, the interest of the world’s top companies shall keep on increasing, with more investments being made into this technology, thereby pushing the Ethereum price forecast further up.
Source: Price Confidential
