Ethereum price today: $3,260
- Lido co-founder shares a new "Second Foundation" following Ethereum Foundation leadership criticism.
- Donald Trump's World Liberty Financial staked 10,000 ETH, placing it among the top 0.1% stETH holders.
- Ethereum could rally 20% if it overcomes a descending trendline resistance and key hurdles near the $3,550 and $3,770 levels.
Ethereum (ETH) is trading near $3,270 as staking protocol Lido co-founder Konstantin Lomashuk hinted at the creation of a Second Foundation. This follows recent community backlash against the Ethereum Foundation (EF) concerning several issues plaguing the top smart contract blockchain network.
Ethereum gets a "Second Foundation" following leadership criticism
The pressure for changes in the Ethereum Foundation leadership, the non-profit organization that supports the Ethereum blockchain, has increased in the past week following key challenges.
Some of the issues discussed by community members include calls for the resignation of the EF's executive director Aya Miyaguchi, criticism of its selling activity and the roll-up centric roadmap that prioritizes scaling via layer 2 networks, centralization concerns and refusal to listen to community suggestions.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin highlighted that while the EF may not be able to handle all the issues, it could support other organisations that aim to represent Ethereum.
"EF should not ‘midcurve’, it should confidently represent the aspects of Ethereum that it can be effective at representing, and deliberately create and nurture open space for other orgs to represent the other aspects of Ethereum," wrote Buterin in an X post on Wednesday.
Most core contributors, including Uniswap founder Hayden Adams, suggested a spin-off organization that handles research and technical developments while the EF focuses on ecosystem development and support.
Following the suggestions, staking protocol Lido and P2P.org co-founder Konstantin Lomashuk shared the account of a newly created "Second Foundation" in an X post.
— Konstantin Lomashuk cyber/acc (@Lomashuk) January 22, 2025
While some community members think it's overall bullish for ETH, others have expressed scepticism, stating that the largest staking protocol Lido launching a Second Foundation isn't what Ethereum needs.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump's World Liberty Financial recently staked 10,000 ETH on Wednesday, placing it among the top 0.1% stETH holders, according to blockchain analytics platform Arkham.
Ethereum Price Forecast: ETH could bounce off $3,216 support to stage 20% rally
Ethereum sustained $20.37 million in futures liquidations in the past 24 hours, per Coinglass data. The total amount of long and short liquidations accounted for $16.58 million and $3.79 million, respectively.
Ethereum has been trading within the $3,200 and $3,550 range with the 100-day and 50-day Simple Moving Averages (SMAs) serving as support and resistance on either side. If ETH bounces off the $3,216 support level again, it could tackle the descending trendline resistance extending from December 16.
ETH/USDT daily chart
A move above this trendline while establishing it as a support, could see ETH rally nearly 20% to test the critical resistance near $4,100. The level is obtained by measuring the height of the descending trendline to the $3,216 support level, and then projecting it upward from a potential breakout point.
However, it has to overcome key hurdles near the $3,550 and $3,770 resistance levels to complete this move.
On the downside, ETH could collect liquidity near the $3,000 psychological level to fuel an upward movement.
The Relative Strength Index (RSI) momentum indicator is just below its neutral level, indicating a slightly dominant bearish pressure. Meanwhile, the Stochastic Oscillator (Stoch) is just above the neutral level.
A daily candlestick close below the $2,817 resistance level will invalidate the bullish thesis.
Ethereum FAQs
Ethereum is a decentralized open-source blockchain with smart contracts functionality. Its native currency Ether (ETH), is the second-largest cryptocurrency and number one altcoin by market capitalization. The Ethereum network is tailored for building crypto solutions like decentralized finance (DeFi), GameFi, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), etc.
Ethereum is a public decentralized blockchain technology, where developers can build and deploy applications that function without the need for a central authority. To make this easier, the network leverages the Solidity programming language and Ethereum virtual machine which helps developers create and launch applications with smart contract functionality.
Smart contracts are publicly verifiable codes that automates agreements between two or more parties. Basically, these codes self-execute encoded actions when predetermined conditions are met.
Staking is a process of earning yield on your idle crypto assets by locking them in a crypto protocol for a specified duration as a means of contributing to its security. Ethereum transitioned from a Proof-of-Work (PoW) to a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism on September 15, 2022, in an event christened “The Merge.” The Merge was a key part of Ethereum's roadmap to achieve high-level scalability, decentralization and security while remaining sustainable. Unlike PoW, which requires the use of expensive hardware, PoS reduces the barrier of entry for validators by leveraging the use of crypto tokens as the core foundation of its consensus process.
Gas is the unit for measuring transaction fees that users pay for conducting transactions on Ethereum. During periods of network congestion, gas can be extremely high, causing validators to prioritize transactions based on their fees.
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