BitMEX CEO: Why Ethereum Could Quickly Hit $200 Again

This year has been a rough one for most cryptocurrencies but some have fared worse than others. Ethereum is one of those heavy sufferers that has lost over 90% since its peak almost a year ago.

According to Arthur Hayes, CEO of Hong Kong based BitMEX, the revival of Ethereum could be just around the corner. Speaking to Cointelegraph Japan he said ETH could quickly return to $200 once new ICO projects start hitting the markets.

According to Sludgefeed which translated the article, Hayes added;

“Once there are new issues, then Ether will rebound aggressively. When the ICO market returns, Ether will quickly test $200. The timing of the ICO rebirth is 12 to 18 months out,”

Hayes has not been a proponent of Ethereum in the past calling it a ‘shitcoin’ and even advising BitMEX users to short it according to Trustnodes which also ran reports of price manipulation.

ICOs have been largely responsible for this year’s Ethereum performance and the fact that it has been outperformed by a number of other crypto assets including Bitcoin, XRP and TRON which have recovered faster. It has been estimated that the ICO war chests are now virtually empty so Ethereum is close to the bottom. December has seen the highest number of ETH withdrawals this year.

At the moment an ICO revival does not look likely but 2019 is likely to be far more positive for crypto than this year has been. Many industry observers have slated a reversal around Q2 next year and a greater interest from institutional investors. This could be the catalyst for more ICOs which would drive Ethereum prices back to $200 very quickly.

At the time of writing Ethereum is trading at $128, down 4.6% on the day. Daily trade volume has dropped from $3 billion to $2.5 as the Christmas rally runs out of steam and starts to reverse the short term trend.

Over the past seven days Ethereum is still up 26% from the $100 it was priced at this time last Thursday according to coinmarketcap.com. Since its 2018 low of around $83 on December 15 Ethereum has recovered 54% to current levels but it is still at its lowest level for 18 months or so.

In terms of market capitalization it currently has $13.4 billion, which is still nearly $2 billion behind XRP in second place. Ethereum has a long way to go to recover and any catalyst is welcome at the moment.

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