Ethereum sets course for $410 as fee costs plummet

ETH/USD is up 4% in the past 24 hours and is likely to break above $410 as altcoins post mixed trades

The weekend was relatively uneventful for the cryptocurrency market, with most of the top 10 altcoins ranging sideways. Bitcoin, which had a strong rally early last week, also began the week on a slow note, trading at around $11,700 as of writing.

Ethereum has surged 4.5% on the day to trade around $406, leading large-cap altcoins into the green. Litecoin is up 5.6% to trade around $62.50 as of press time, while XRP is exchanging hands around $0.288 following a 2.27% intraday surge.

Ethereum

Ethereum’s price action today has seen its value increase by more than 208% against the US dollar. The 2nd largest cryptocurrency by market cap has so far seen a strong start to the week and could test resistance near $410.

According to crypto trader Crypto Wolf, ETH/BTC has also picked up a nice uptrend and could soon hit 0.0555 per bitcoin.

In the chart below, the trader points out that the pair has recently broken above a seven month falling wedge. The MACD has printed a bullish divergence on the monthly chart and the price could rally to 0.0850, as marked by the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement level.

This comes as Ethereum’s network fees skyrocketed to all-time highs, before falling 80% over the weekend. 

Network fees on Ethereum have steadily surged to hit a peak in mid-July, however, as they fall, on-chain statistics tracker Santiment suggests it offers users an “opportunity” to access “cheaper on-chain operations”.

Mixed market for altcoins

The past 24 hours has also seen Tezos, Aave, Algorand, Cosmos, Synthetix Network and Basic Attention Network all make gains.

The biggest gainers in the top 100 coins include Aragon with 26% and Swipe with an upswing of 17%. NEM is trading 14% up, as does Siacoin with 13%, and THETA 11%.

The double-digit gains come as the overall crypto market expects increased volatility for Bitcoin — something that could aid higher gains in the altcoin market.

However, not all the coins are seeing upticks in price. OMG Network is down 4.56%, trading around $6.14, Augur has declined by about 6% to exchange hands around $24.40 and Nano is down 6% also to trade around $1.31 as of writing.