Bittrex announces Ethereum hard fork support; Ethereum (ETH) gripped by uncertainty

The US-based cryptocurrency exchange Bittrex has finished the preparations required to get ready for Constantinople hard fork that will be implemented on Ethereum network on January 16. The company made the subsequent announcement in its Twitter account. 

This Bittrex joined the lengthy list of cryptocurrency exchanges, including Binance и OKEx, that made similar announcements to declare the fork support. 

As this is a scheduled update agreed by the community, the process should go smoothly. However, Ethereum may fall victim to high volatility and short-term turbulence due to a period of uncertainty.

Read more about the upgrade.

It should be noted that January 16 is an approximate date as the hard fork will take place on block No. 7,080,00. The developers calculated that it will be mined on January 16, but no one can say for sure.

"We can just say mid-January, it doesn’t make a difference if we decide on a date or not. We can always postpone," an Ethereum core developer Peter Szilagyi said back in November. 

Considering that Constantinople upgrade has a history of delays, we cannot rule out another delay, if some errors of deficiencies are detected.

Meanwhile, Ethereum (ETH) crashed below $150.00 handle ahead of European opening. The coin came under a strong pressure as the sell-off was intensified by technical factors. that took the price under both SMA50 and SMA100 (4-hour chart) to the low of $136.51. Currently, ETH/USD is changing hands at $138.90.

ETH/USD, 4-hour