You might be aware that any discussion around cryptocurrencies always revolves around the two largest cryptos by market capitalization, Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH). It is obvious that Bitcoin is a favorite amongst those looking for a peer-to-peer (P2P) electronic payment system and is preferred as a digital store of value, overshadowing Ethereum, but ETH still has a lot to offer.

Ethereum advocates usually look at it as more than just a crypto and believe that it has a wide variety of use cases, huge intrinsic value and provides unique earning opportunities to its investors.

As such, the large altcoin remains bullish in the long term. It is up more than 746% over the last three years and 58% above the January 1 opening. At the time of writing, Ether's market cap stands at $227.12 billion, reinforcing its 2nd position on the CoinMarketCap ranking with a market dominance of 19%, against Bitcoin's 49.8%.

On the other hand, the long-awaited September 15, 2022 Merge event that saw Ethereum transition from a proof-of-work (PoW) crypto to a proof-of-stake (PoS) token turned out to be a non-event as the price did not rally as many expected. Similarly, the Shanghai and Capella upgrade that was successfully completed on April 12, saw Ether's rise for a few days before turning down again.

Crypto investors, however, still remain hopeful that 2023 will be a bull market for the industry with Ethereum recording a sustained recovery to hit the $10,000 mark before the end of the year. Is this possible? Well, let's dig in to find out.

Ethereum: A Brief Overview

Ethereum is the world's largest altcoin and second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. It was created in 2015 by a number of developers including Vitalik Buterin who initially published a whitepaper explaining the concept of Ethereum in November 2013.

Following Buterin's initial work, other developers jumped on the bandwagon in different capacities to help bring the project to fruition. Vitalik Buterin, Gavin Wood, Charles Hoskinson, Amir Chetrit, Anthony Di Iorio, Jeffrey Wilcke, Joseph Lubin and Mihai Alisie are all considered co-founders of the largest Layer 1 blockchain network.

The Ethereum blockchain has since undergone a lengthy development process spanning a number of years to bring it to what is it is today – a decentralized, open-source, and public service blockchain network that uses smart contracts for decentralized application (dApps) development and cryptocurrency trading without the involvement of a middle men.

More than just a digital token, Ethereum is more like a network, maintained and updated by validators who earn Ether in exchange for their work and contribution.

The native currency of the network, Ether (ETH), serves as the blockchain's cryptocurrency for powering the dApps built on the platform. The blockchain, therefore, provides powerful tools for developers to create and deploy their own interoperable, decentralized assets and services.

A core concept behind Ethereum and its various applications is that there are no central authorities to enforce the network. This means the network users themselves control decisions made for the group.

Ethereum has played a major role in expanding the Web3.0 industry, offering blockchain projects, enhanced efficiency, faster transactions, and dApps to industries across the world. As such, it has a number of use cases including in areas of decentralized finance (DeFi), decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), and Decentralized apps (dApps).

In a nutshell, Ethereum is offering utility and creating value in numerous sectors including entertainment, real estate, healthcare, logistics and finance.

To understand where Ethereum will go next and to gain a better understanding of Ethereum's forecast, one needs to understand its price history.

Ethereum Price History

To understand Ethereum's journey, it is important to look at the network's development timeline and how that has affected its price.

During the presale, an initial coin offering (ICO) that took place in 2014 to finance the development of the Ethereum blockchain, Ether's price was $0.31. In 2015, the year that Ethereum first launched, the price started at around $0.74 and the lowest closing price for ETH was $0.42 while the highest price was $1.24.

Ethereum Development Journey

In 2016 with ETH at $12.24, the DAO attack in which 3.6 million ETH worth $60 million was lost (equivalent to one-third of the funds contributed by would-be DAO participants) led to a controversial revision of the Ethereum blockchain in what was referred to as an ""irregular state change""resulting in the Ethereum Classic (ETC) hard fork. This was a factor in the ICO boom that started in 2017.

The 2017 bull market saw Ether's price rise more than 750% from $8.1 on January 1 recording a series of higher highs to reach a record high of $727 in December that year. This bull run was marked by the Byzantium hard fork in late 2017 reducing the rewards from 5 ETH to 3 ETH.

The reduction in ETH rewards was in the effort to reduce the inflation of Ether in basic supply and demand economics. The supply and demand forced after that propelled the Ethereum price to another record high of $1,151 in January 2018.

The price then turned down, dropping as much as 88% to lows of $135 in December that year, marking the 2018 bear market, known as the 'Crypto Winter,' which remains infamous in the industry's history. This crypto crash was driven by regulatory changes and security incidents, particularly in South Korea and China.

The downturn which was sustained throughout the year demonstrated the risk associated with market speculation and the effect of regulatory developments on market stability.

ETH/USD All-time Chart

The bear market persisted throughout 2019 with the price rising 110% during the first half of the year from $173 in January to reach a high of $350 in June, before falling back to $128 by the close of the year.

On the development front, 2019 was marked by two major upgrades, the Constantinople and the Istanbul hard forks. The Constantinople upgrade reduced block reward issuance from 3 to 2 ETH. The Istanbul hard fork which took place in December 2019 included six Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs), specific code changes to the ethereum protocol that lowered the gas costs. This increased the bandwidth on the blockchain and fostered zero-knowledge privacy technologies such as zk-SNARKs.

In 2020, the market began to recover slowly at first and then with rapid momentum in 2020. Powered by the growth of DeFi, institutional interest, and increased retail participation, the crypto market saw a significant bull run. The London hard form which occurred in August 2021 at a time when Ether was going for $2,533, was aimed at making preparations for the transition to Ethereum 2.0 and a shift to the PoS consensus mechanism..

By the end of 2021, Ethereum had hit new all-time highs close to $5,000, marking a 558% increase during that year.

What followed was the 2022 bear market, whose effects are still being felt at the moment. The bear market was characterized by sharp pullbacks, with Ether;s price falling 81.66% from it's all-time high to a low of $880 in June 2022.

This bear market was influenced by several factors including environmental and financial stability concerns, while prominent figures such as Elon Musk, put a strain on the market. Simultaneously, the collapse of the Terra ecosystem and the depegging of its stablecoin, Tether (USDT), contributed further to the market's downturn.

The Ethereum Beacon Chain upgrade, christened the Merge, which saw the blockchain translation from a PoW to a PoS protocol turned out to be a non-event as investors turned it into a sell-the news occasion. The downturn was accelerated by the collapse of one of the largest crypto exchanges, FTX in November 2022. This frustrated all the efforts the bulls had put in in the run up to The Merge, as Ethereum closed the year at $1,194.

2023 has been fairly bullish for the largest altcoin by market capitalization. The price action has painted six green candlesticks as seen on the all-time chart above, reaching the year's high at $2,140 on April 14. The year-to-date lows lie at $1,27, reached after traders reacted to the US SEC suedBinance and Coinbase in early June.

The crypto is 64% above its January opening and has been recording higher lows since the beginning of the year.

This has left many analysts optimistic that Ethereum will continue the bullish momentum, eventually reaching $10,000 before the year ends.

At the time of writing, Ether is hovering at $1,890.

Ethereum Price Analysis

After turning away from its all-time high around $5,000, Ether declined a whooping 83% to set a swing low at $883 in June 2022. Since then, the price action has recorded a series of higher lows and relatively equal highs around the $2,000 level. This had led to the appearance of an ascending triangle on the weekly chart as shown on the chart below.

Bulls are trying to push the price above the triangle's horizontal line (x-axis) at $2,000. Such a move would confirm a bullish breakout for ETH price with the first barrier emerging from the 100-weekly Simple Moving Average (SMA) at $2,290.

Other levels to watch on the upside include the $2,500 psychological level which the bulls have to flip into support before reaching the technical target of the governing chart pattern at $2,893. This would represent a 54% ascent from the current price.

ETH/USD Weekly Chart

This positive outlook was supported by the position of the Relative Strength Index (RSI) above the midline in the positive region. The price strength at 54 suggests that the bulls are currently controlling the price.

In addition, ETH currently trades above key support levels including the $1,600 support level, where both the 50 and the 200 SMAs appear to merge. Other areas of support include the $1,500 psychological level and the major support level at $1,200.

Any attempts to pull the price below these levels would be met by immense buying from this cohort of investors who may wish to increase their profits.

Conversely, things go awry for the bulls if Ethereum turns down from the current price, breaching the 50 and 200 SMAs at $1,600, dropping below the triangle. Ether's price may continue trading between this level and the $1,500 for a few weeks, but a breach of the latter would be detrimental for ETH. If this happens, a drop below $1,200 to revisit 2022 lows around the $880 demand zone would be inevitable.

Ethereum Price Prediction – Will ETH Hit $10,000 In 2023?

Ethereum holds a promising future because it is more than just a transactional crypto. The altcoin had slowly been establishing itself as a "store of value" for those entities which are looking to optimize their wealth, positioning itself as the most favorite alternative to Bitcoin

Ethereum's functionality goes very well with NFTs, DApps, DeFi, smart contracts and the list keeps growing each year.

We have already established that ETH's price growth largely depends on the milestones recorded on the blockchain's development. Therefore, as long as the Ethereum network keeps growing stronger and the development team continues to develop innovative features, ETH is likely to continue to grow in value, attracting more and more investors.

Note that several factors have influenced Ethereum's past price rallies and in the current state, cryptocurrency sector dynamics differ from what was observed during the DeFitoken's previous skyrocketing periods.

Several analysts have mulled over the possibility of Ethereum hitting the coveted $10,000 market before the end of the year. One of these is Patric @Finaconda, a DeFi, Crypto, and Metaverse who said in a May 18 tweet that "ETH could print a potential 5x increase to $10,000-$12,000 per coin in the next bull market."

He, however, gave a number of conditions that must be met for this to happen, mentioning that "the finalization of Ethereum 2.0" will make the network "faster, environmentally friendly, and efficient," attracting more investors to ETH.

He also mentioned that Ethereum would need support from the wider market as high Inflation rates, high interest rates, and low confidence in financial markets remain major challenges.

Therefore, there has been continued restoration of investors' trust in the crypto market, which needs to be widespread to establish a conducive atmosphere for Ethereum's substantial and sustained growth.

Note that for Ehereum to really touch $10,000, it has climbed close to 430% from the current price. This would mean an 32% increase month-on-month.

Based on this figure, we carried out an analysis using the Binance price prediction calculator to get the short term price prediction for ETH. According to the analysis, the price prediction for July is $2,488, surpassing the 2023 high around $2,140.

Further according to our analysis, the crypto is likely to cross the November 2021 high around $5,000 somewhere between September and October.

The ETH price prediction for December 2023 shows the average price of BTC at $9,971, given that it continues to rise by as much as 32% every month.

However, to hit $10,000, Ethereum still has several price levels to clear, with $5,000 as a critical resistance position considering it is close to Ether's all-time high.

Note that ETH has remained bullish in 2023 as the wider crypto market aims to exit the bear market from last year. In this case, the market rally is led by assets like Bitcoin. Historically, when Bitcoin records gains, it tends to pull the rest of the market along, with Ethereum in line to benefit.

Therefore, there is no doubt that the Ether's price may touch $10,000, but it remains to be seen when that will be.

Ethereum Long-term Price Prediction – Is ETH at $100K Possible?

At the moment, there is not enough data to determine whether Ethereum can reach $100,00o and when.

However, for Ethereum to rise to $100,00, it is not just the Use Cases but also the economic environment that must be friendly. Ethereum price has been highly influenced by the liquidity and wealth of individual and institutional investors.

For example, whenever the Fed tightens rates or reduces its balance sheet, Ethereum tends to lose value due to lower demand. But then economic cycles are a part and parcel of human history.

Ethereum at $100,000 will have a market cap of $12 Trillion, given the current amount of Ether in circulation. This is possible, in theory.

For example, if ETH were to rise at 10% per annum, it would take ETH 44 years (2067) to reach the $10,000 level.Note that it took Bitcoin 4 years to rise from $1700 to $50,000. The $12 Trillion market cap for Ethereum may sound quite huge today but more than 40 years down the line, may not be that huge.

Also, given that Ethereum has become deflationary and also that it may rise faster than 15%, Ethereum is likely to reach $100K much faster than 2067. For example, if Ethereum rises by 30% year-on-year, it will reach the $100,000 level by the year 2038.

Ethereum is unlikely to rise consistently given economic uncertainties. The above are just hypothetical scenarios.

While growth is unlikely to follow these exact patterns, it is not unusual to see a new category grow this way, with high growth in the initial years before easing to lower levels over time.

Will Ethereum ever Outperform Bitcoin?

Ethereum's price is unlikely to overtake Bitcoin ever but it has the potential to overtake BTC in terms of market cap since it has an uncapped supply.

However, nothing is impossible in the world of cryptocurrencies. If we take the example of the 2021 bull market, ETH outperformed Bitcoin and gained nearly 400% compared to 66% for Bitcoin.

In addition, experts believe that due to its unique blockchain and several use cases, Ethereum has a stable future and might even perform better than Bitcoin in future but is unlikely to overtake the price of Bitcoin.

Bottom Line

The analysis of Ethereum's past performance and development milestones since its inception in 2014 and launch in 2015 reveals that the token is here to stay. The network has unprecedented capabilities with solid fundamentals making it grow from time to time.

Its continued growth and constant developmental upgrades makes many analysts and market experts predict that 2023 and the years ahead will be good for the largest smart contracts token. With rising confidence in the technology and blockchain solutions as well as new innovations around DeFi applications, Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and the Metaverse, ETH will surely continue to grow in value and those HODLing the crypto will not waver.