What Hard Fork? Ether's Price Is Climbing Ahead of Tech Upgrade

Ether prices are up 11 percent so far today, indicating increasing market confidence that ethereum may sail through its next big upgrade.

The "Byzantium" code, which is a part of the larger upgrade called "Metropolis," will be enforced this Sunday via a hard fork of the ethereum blockchain. Though past hard forks have been mostly smooth, an emergency hard fork last year saw some continue to mine the old blockchain, creating a new asset, ethereum classic, and some users and firms lost funds in the event.

So far, however, developers have indicated that they are confident the hard fork will be activated without issue – and traders seem to agree.

At press time, ether is trading at around $340 levels. Week-on-week, the cryptocurrency is up 10.7 percent, while month-on-month, ether is enjoying 23 percent gains.

The price action analysis suggests ether could scale new multi-week highs and possibly extend the rally up to the September high ahead of the hard fork.

Daily chart

The daily chart shows that:

• The upside break of the sideways channel (i.e. consolidation ends with a strong upside move) signals continuation of the rally from the Sept. 15 low of $298.29.
• The bullish break on the relative strength index (RSI) validates the bullish break on the price chart.
• All major averages – 50-MA, 100-MA and 200-MA – are perfectly aligned one below the other in favor of the bulls.

View

• Ether looks set to test September high of $396 in the short run.
• On the downside, only a break below the 50-day moving average level of $307 would abort the bullish view on the daily chart.

Tuning fork image via Shutterstock