Ethereum Classic price moved sidelines on Wednesday even as ETH approached the key resistance point at $20,000. ETC price was trading at $21.10, which was a few points below this week’s high of $21.64. The coin has jumped by over 31% from its lowest level in March of this year.
Shanghai upgrade as a catalyst
Ethereum and Ethereum Classic are blockchains that seek to solve the same challenge but with a different approach. On the one hand, Ethereum migrated from being a proof-of-work (PoW) to a proof-of-stake (PoS) in 2022.
Ethereum Classic believes in the original ideals of Ethereum and has maintained its proof-of-work infrastructure. This means that transactions in the network are handled by miners and that it is more decentralized than Ethereum.
A key catalyst for ETC price this month is the upcoming Shanghai upgrade. Shanghai is a major update in Ethereum’s infrastructure that will see stakers withdraw their staked coins. Data compiled by StakingRewards shows that the volume of staked coins has jumped to over $32 billion.
Read more: How to buy Ethereum Classic.
The upcoming Shanghai upgrade partially explains why ETH price has done well in the past few days. It jumped to a high of$1,941, which was ~41% above the lowest point in March this year. It was also about 80% above the lowest point in 2022.
Ethereum Classic tends to do well when ETH is rising. It was one of the top-performing coins ahead of last year’s merge event.
Another reason is that Ethereum could find itself in trouble with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The SEC believes that staking coins are securities. In fact, Gary Gensler warned about this after the merge.
Therefore, a crackdown on Ethereum could see more investors move to the safety of Ethereum Classic. However, fundamentally, the main challenge for Ethereum Classic is that its ecosystem is still relatively small.
Ethereum Classic price prediction
The 4H chart shows that the ETC price has been in an ascending phase in the past few days. It has formed an ascending triangle pattern and moved above the 50-period moving average. Ethereum Classic has also moved above the Woodie pivot point.
Therefore, I suspect that the coin will continue rising as buyers target the next key resistance level at $23. This price is along the third resistance of Woodie pivot point and is ~10% above the current level.
