If you haven’t picked it up already, I highly recommend reading the referenced book in the quotation box that accompanies this blog post.

The history of Ethereum is both fascinating and strained, as it reflects the intellectual and social struggles that necessarily underlie the formation and roll out of a breakthrough technology. For this reason, Ethereum remains in the trenches, as its proponents overlook the no man’s land that lies ahead of them, and are ultimately driven by the promise of vindication if their aspirational development goals succeed.

Check the book out for yourself and you’ll have a better appreciation of the aforesaid verbiage. For now, let’s take a look at the weekly chart and consider ether’s recent price action and what awaits:

Ether has achieved consecutive weekly closes above the $300 price level since the end of July of this year. This is a constructive set up for bulls, considering in 2019 ether only managed two closes above this level on the weekly time frame: once in June and again in July of that year. Keep in mind that prior to this, ether bulls had not achieved a close above the $300 level since August of 2018.

If bulls can sustain their momentum and hold ether above the $300 price level on the weekly time frame moving forward, their next target to overcome will be the $500 level. Ether briefly traded just below this level at the end of August of this year before bears swept in with a sell off.

All in all, the chart seems to delineate the boundaries of the trenches that ether bulls are confined to at the moment. If they surpass the $500 level, no man’s land lies ahead, with higher price levels serving as new resistance points in their battle to reclaim ether’s all time high above $1K from early 2018. Yet if the bulls are unable to hold above $300, bears may consider that a retreat and become emboldened.

The outcome of this bottleneck scenario, at least in the near to intermediate term, is contingent on whether Ethereum developers and stakeholders can successfully roll out deliverables expected by the end of 2020 which form the basis of the next iteration of the protocol. Although that remains to be seen, it certainly is an undertaking worth keeping an eye on as the year winds down and we look ahead to 2021.