The ETH/USD pair closed at 1698.95 after placing a high of 1698.95 and a low of 1587.86. ETH/USD rose sharply on Friday after dropping for six consecutive sessions over news that the total number of intelligent ERC-721 Ethereum contracts has reached a new all-time high. The Ethereum ERC-721 smart contracts that form the backbone of most NFTs on the blockchain reached an all-time high level amid the current NFT boom in the market. According to the CoinMetric report, the Ethereum ERC-721 reached 19,000 on the back of NFT-mania, growing rapidly.

The NFT space has been expanding considerably in recent months and the usage of ERC-721 has also been increased for crafting NFTs. They have created digital items with scarcity, including artwork, video games assets, and music. The NFT marketplace has reached $342 million in February from the $12 million in December that depicts the NFT-mania. On the other hand, the Ethereum network is also working on an upgrade named Ethereum 2.0 that will switch the network from an inefficient proof-of-work (POW) consensus to a more secure and efficient proof-of-stake (POS).

Ethereum blockchain is considered to be more active and capable of conducting more transactions per second than Bitcoin blockchain. Ethereum is the main network for the development and launch of DeFi market, and the recent Ethereum 2.0 upgrade is also under a process that would improve the working it. However, the main drawback of the network is the associated high cost of gas on Ethereum, which has caused worry amongst the developers as many alternatives are entering the market. Whereas, some analysts and top experts of the crypto market believe that the high gas-cost of the Ethereum network is associated with the increased usage of the network. As Bohdan Prylepa, CTO of Prof-it Blockchain, has said that the higher demand and usage of Ethereum is a cause of the higher price of ETH.

The primary developer of the Ethereum network, Vitalik Buterin, is working on a faster solution like Optimistic Rollups. He has said that rollups are a powerful solution for the scaling problem in the Ethereum network. However, on Friday, the much-anticipated Ethereum Layer 2 scaling solution has been postponed, possibly till July, that was scheduled to release this week. The team at Optimism announced that the upcoming scaling solution for the Ethereum network that was due this week had been pushed forward to at least July to allow the community of Ethereum to prepare adequately. This move came in as an uncoordinated rush in Layer 2 without enough preparations could be dangerous for the decentralized apps that might get attacked by challengers to cheat users. The company said that the mainnet would only be launched when the ecosystem was ready and stable.

Daily Technical Levels
Support and Resistance
1691.38 1722.07
1670.92 1732.30
1660.69 1752.76
Pivot Point: 1701.61

Technically, ETH/USD is trading with a bullish bias at 1,765 level, having violated the resistance area of 1,743 level. On the 4 hour timeframe, the ETH/USD pair has violated the ascending triangle pattern that’s suggesting odds of the bullish trend. On the further higher side, the violation of 1,743 is likely to direct ETH/USD price further higher until 1,820 and 1,865 level. Conversely, the support continues to hold around 1,720 and 1,650 levels today. Consider buying over 1,743 levels today. Good luck!