Ethereum Price Analysis: ETH/USD tug of war at $270 intensifies as $280 beckons

Ethereum managed to stay above the support at $240 during the bearish Monday. Also contributing to the support was the long term ascending trendline. The recovery from the support has been steady enough to hit levels slightly above $270. However, at the time of writing, Ethereum is dancing at $269.55 due to the intensified tug of war. The bulls push to take Ethereum back above $280 but the sellers’ congestion in the same zone keeps increasing.

Ripple’s CEO Brad Garlinghouse criticizes Ethereum and Bitcoin for centralization

The CEO of Ripple, a blockchain startup behind the issuance of XRP has criticized both Bitcoin and Ethereum for allowing centralization to thrive especially in mining.

China controls the Bitcoin blockchain. There are four miners in China that represent the 60% of mining capacity and 80% of mining capacity is based in China for Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Ethereum technical picture

Ethereum is technically forced to follow a sideways action in a narrow range between $268 and $272. The RSI recovered from the dip close to 30 to step above 55. The horizontal movement at this level confirms the possibility of sideways trading taking center stage in the near term. Looking at the momentum indicator, Ethereum’s path of least resistance is downwards, especially if the immediate support at $268 fails to hold. Also in line to provide support is the 50 SMA at $256 on the 4-hour chart and the 100 SMA at $230.43.

ETH/USD 4-hour chart