Mobile Payments Technology Ethereum to $500 This Year…Thanks to Art?

It’s been a bad year for cryptocurrency, starting things off with a catastrophic plummet then a series of short-range ups and downs that left most cryptocurrencies nowhere near their original highs. However, word sent our way from Thomas Crown Art suggests that one cryptocurrency in particular, Ethereum, is about to see some serious gains, hitting $500 per coin by the end of the year.

Ian Mcleod of Thomas Crown Art noted that Ethereum, by its fundamentals, really shouldn’t be poised to break $250, let alone $500. In fact, Ethereum couldn’t even break two key resistance levels: $208 and $210. Mcleod makes it clear that Ethereum’s pricing is squarely in bear territory, with “prices declining dramatically.”

But Mcleod also expects prices to climb back up, looking for a trend reversal to strike. He expects not only the price to clear the $500 mark, but he expects further upward progress throughout the course of 2019 as well.

Explaining himself, Mcleod noted “Much of the expected price rises will be fueled by an increasing number of sectors including real estate, antiques and finance, using Ethereum and its superior blockchain technology. The art world is likely to be one of the biggest adopters as blockchain can authenticate artwork. It’s an ideal use-case for distributed ledger technology as it offers the ability to store a permanent, immutable record of artwork at the point of creation which can be used to authenticate registered works by any party.”

Bitcoin hasn’t exactly done all that well when it comes to keeping up with speed demands. That’s why the whole Lightning Network thing came about, after all. That’s only been out for a little shy of two months, by some reports, and you’ll notice that the price…just hasn’t changed much. In fact, bitcoin’s price is about $1,000 short of its post-crash low. It’s held its value with almost shocking regularity. Ethereum, meanwhile, actually managed to clear the $208 threshold very early Sunday morning before dropping back into the $206 range.

So maybe Mcleod is on to something. Maybe Mcleod’s engaging in wishful thinking. The only way to tell will be to stick around until the end of the year…and maybe pick up an Ethereum or two ahead of the possible advance.