ETH, the native cryptocurrency that powers the Ethereum blockchain, continues to suffer amid elevated post-hawkish Fed meeting sell pressure. ETH, otherwise known as Ether, was last down over 5.0% on Friday, having broken out to fresh monthly lows under its 21-Day Moving Average (DMA) earlier in the session. ETH/USD looks on the verge of breaking below $1,200, which could trigger the next leg of selling towards the late-November lows in the $1,150 area.Price Prediction – Where Next For ETH?Ether’s latest drop and fall below its 21DMA, which had in recent weeks been acting as an important source of short-term support, suggest that the positive momentum that lifted ETH as high as $1,350 from November’s sub-$1,100 lows has now been snapped. Ether bears note that the cryptocurrency remains locked within the bounds of a longer-term bearish trend that has been in play since August.With Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s hawkish tone at Wednesday’s meeting seemingly having snapped the prospect of a year-end “Santa rally”, and with ETH’s technical picture seemingly having taken a substantial turn for the worse, a retest of November’s double-bottom in the $1,070 area seems much more likely that a rebound towards $1,500.Can a DeFi Summer 2.0 Trigger a Bounce In Ether?In their latest DeFi Ecosystem Landscape Report, analysts at Hashkey Capital argue that the outlook for the DeFi space for 2023 is strong. “Many DeFi applications are now easier to use than home banking applications, which paves the way for onboarding more users in 2023,” analysts state, adding that “the general public is also getting a better awareness of digital wallets as a result of big social media companies integrating them”. Analysts point to the examples of Reddit, Instagram and Twitter, who are all making moves to add crypto-based services to their platforms.Hashkey continues that 2023 might see DeFi application unlock billions in liquidity from the rapidly growing non-fungible token (NFT) market. The analysts continue that “ETH and Ethereum-based assets and L2 based are the main assets used in DeFi” and that “DeFi protocols are one of the biggest users and fee-payers of the Ethereum chain”.As a result, they explain that if 2023 is a good year for DeFi, it will likely also be a good year for the price of Ether. “More DeFi activity will increase the demand for Ether, and it will also burn more Ether (EIP1559),” Hashkey analysts note. “More Ether burns will result in more Ether scarcity and deflation… this will lead to higher Ether prices, which will lead to more DeFi activity, and so on and so forth”, they add.Can Ethereum Flip 2023?One of the biggest dreams of ethereum supports and biggest nightmares of the bitcoin maximalist group is that ethereum, currently the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, could “flip” bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, in the coming years. The concept of the “Flip” refers to Ethereum’s market capitalization overtaking that of bitcoin.Ethereum currently has a market capitalization of just under $148 billion versus bitcoin’s market cap of around $326 billion. In other words, the total value of all BTC tokens in circulation, according to the current price, is about 2.2 times more than the total value of all ETH tokens currently in circulation.Can ethereum overtake bitcoin in 2023? Traders shouldn’t rule out the possibility. The ethereum and bitcoin blockchains are very different. The latter is “smart-contract” enabled, meaning DeFi applications can be built to run on top of it. As noted by Hashkey analysts above, a recovery in DeFi markets in 2023, perhaps as global macro conditions take a turn for the better and as adoption trends continue, could substantially boost ETH.By comparison, bitcoin solely functions as a digital currency ledger and doesn’t have a thriving DeFi ecosystem sat on top of it. It also still uses the highly energy-intensive proof of work (PoW) consensus mechanism to secure its blockchain, compared to ethereum, which since the “merge” in September, runs using the must more energy-efficient proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism. As a PoS chain, ETH can now be used to generate stable and predictable yield, another distinction to bitcoin, which remains a non-yielding asset.Given all of the above reasons, if a broad cryptocurrency market recovery takes hold in 2023, there is every possibility that ethereum could claim the title of being the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market cap.Altcoins Offering Quicker ReturnsCryptocurrencies have been trading sideways for a few weeks now, leading some traders to start looking at alternatives with more potential in the short term. Listed below are some of the leading presales in the market, allowing investors to get in on the ground floor.FightOut, a brand-new move-to-earn (M2E) fitness application and gym chain that seeks to bring the fitness lifestyle into web3, has opened its pre-sale and investors think the project could transform the existing web3 M2E landscape. While existing M2E applications such as StepN only track steps and require expensive non-fungible token (NFT) buy-ins to take part, FightOut takes a more holistic approach to tracking and rewarding its users for their exercise and activity, and doesn’t require any expensive buy-ins to take part.FightOut's FGHT tokens are currently selling for 60.06 per 1 USDT, and interested investors are encouraged to move fast to secure their tokens, with the pre-sale having already raised over $2.08 million in just a few days. FGHT is the token that will power the FightOut crypto ecosystem.Visit FightOut NowThose interested in investing in a promising crypto trading platform start-up should look no further than Dash 2 Trade. The up-and-coming analytics and social trading platform hopes to take the crypto trading space by storm with its host of unique features.These include trading signals, social sentiment and on-chain indicators, a pre-sale token scoring system, a token listing alert system and a strategy back-testing tool. Dash 2 Trade’s ecosystem will be powered by the D2T token, which users will need to buy and hold in order to access the platform’s features. Dash 2 Trade is currently conducting a token pre-sale at highly discounted rates and sales recently surpassed $9.9 million. The pre-sale dashboard is going to be released on Friday, with the development team currently running ahead of schedule. Tokens are currently selling for $0.0533 each and will be listed on multiple centralized exchanges in around one month.Visit Dash 2 Trade hereMajor blockchain-based games like Axie Infinity lost significant traction in 2022. As a result, many investors interested in the crypto gaming space are looking for alternative avenues. Calvaria, an up-and-coming play-to-earn battle card crypto game, could be a good alternative. Calvaria seeks to boost crypto adoption by creating a bridge between the real world and crypto, a fun and accessible crypto game.Investors should consider Calvaria's RIA token pre-sale. Calvaria has now raised $2.45 million, with a crypto whale scooping up $97.5K in one purchase last week. The presale is in the final stage, with only 21% of tokens left.Visit Calvaria Now
Source From : cryptonews