Why Ethereum?

ETHEREUM

“The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge.”
Hunter S Thompson, Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas.

Why Ethereum?
Ethereum is an open-source platform based on blockchain technology, which allows new developers to create their own decentralized applications, called Smart Contracts.

Bitcoin stores data on transactions in Bitcoin

Ethereum stores data on transactions in Ether tokens, but also stores details of any Smart Contracts written and uploaded to its blockchain.

Smart contracts are just like regular contracts but in digital form.

This is kind of ideal for financial contracts, such that when certain criteria are met, the transaction occurs without further input. Additionally, the data is all decentralised, and therefore more secure.

Thanks to blockchain technology, smart contracts can be executed as programmed, without the possibility of delays, censorship or outside interference (which is the case with physical contracts). In other words, they allow efficient, safe operations and without intermediation.

Users pay for the use of the decentralised network using… you guessed it… Ether tokens.

While this is all a bit mumbo-jumbo sounding, but suffice it to say major companies rate it enough to get involved, and are currently developing applications using it, see this article.

This gives Ethereum a decent edge over Bitcoin going forward. It has intrinsic “crypto-value” and also an actual real-life use case.

You can facilitate exchanges of money, shares, property, content, or anything else of value.

This and the fact it is open source allows the community and private companies to trade it as well as use it for projects.

Ethereum was developed in 2013 by Russian Vitalik Buterin, but it wasn't until 2014 that he and his partners presented it at a Bitcoin conference in Miami.

From the funds raised in the subsequent crowd-sale to today (remember that it is ranked number 2 in the ranking of cryptocurrencies with a capitalization of almost half a trillion dollars), the history of Ethereum is a success which would not have been seen without the rise of BTC.

ETH is currently 67% correlated to Bitcoin.


TECHNICAL ANALYSIS
The weekly chart shows that it is very likely that Ethereum is in wave 3 as you may be able to see in the image. While ETH is very young in terms of how reliable Elliott Waves can possibly be in cases like this, there is no denying that the movement up has been impulsive. VERY impulsive! It’s not that often you are looking at a 10.618 extension.

After such an aggressive surge upwards, I would expect a pullback & given the correlation to Bitcoin, this would be a little after BTC has engaged on its own corrective move, which I expect imminently. I also think the pullback will be large.

I am long term bullish and believe that the price of Ethereum has the potential for appreciation, but needs to collect some liquidity from lower down. Possibly a lot lower down, and the size of the correction will be influenced by the correction in Bitcoin. So, the message for now is basically wait for a better opportunity.

This is not investment advice and in no case will I be responsible for possible losses caused by investing in an asset as volatile as cryptocurrencies.