Gerry Palmers Tech 05.23.2021 05:May AM EDT

Ethereum Price Prediction: Bearish Sentiment, China ‘Crackdown’ Could Pull Price Down to $2,000

Rough sailing remains for cryptocurrency trading, particularly for the continued bearish sentiment towards Ethereum, the world's second most traded digital token.

Ethereum tried to recover Thursday after a massive pulldown on Wednesday off news that China has continued its ban on the trading of cryptocurrencies, and almost returned half of what it lost that day, but would eventually fall at the mercy of sellers on Friday.

Ethereum had lost 30 percent of its value during the Wednesday crash, hitting a monthly low of $1895. However, it tried to bounce back and reached the $3000 mark on Thursday, but eventually fell once more Friday with a massive sell-off, shaving off 20 percent of its value once more to reach the $2,100 threshold intraday, and ended around $2450, FX Empire reported.

Ethereum Seen to Hover Around $2000 Levels

Facing such a bearish environment, Ethereum is predicted to make another further slip down towards Wednesday's lows, hovering around the $2000 level if prices would close Saturday below the 100-day simple moving average (SMA), which currently stands at $2264, as it failed to reach a comfortable $2500 level.

ETH bulls had been closely safeguarding the 100-day SMA to keep the digital coin afloat despite the crash, But we may expect the worst to still to come as grim news continues for the cryptocurrency market.

Ethereum Value Drops with China 'Crackdown'

Liu He, China's Vice Premier, shook the market Friday declaring a "crackdown on bitcoin mining and trading behavior, as reported by FXStreet.com, as part of extensive efforts to curb the purported financial risk.

This came after the China Internet Finance Association said on Wednesday that the country's financial institutions will not be allowed to engage in cryptocurrency trading due to the "volatile nature of the digital coins." This is consistent with a similar 2017 ban on the tokens that also led to an enormous Bitcoin sell-off.

This led to Wednesday's crash with Bitcoin falling sharply to $30,000 in intraday trading before making a rebound and settling at $37,000 that still accounted for a 12 percent loss, Coindesk reported. Ethereum, meanwhile, slid 25 percent at $2,587, with an intraday low of $1895, even with news of the network's plan to cut carbon emissions.

The meme-based Dogecoin had an even worse beating falling steeply at 45 percent, from 48 US cents to 21 cents in just a 24-hour period.

Ethereum Value: All Cryptocurrencies Drop in Recent Weeks

All cryptocurrencies had faced massive shortfalls in recent weeks.

Dogecoin had already dropped to a third of its value last week after Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk tweeted that the coin was a "hustle" when he hosted NBC's "Saturday Night Live". It however recovered with Musk's subsequent tweets of collaborating with Dogecoin developers on "system transaction efficiency," which was "potentially promising".

Bitcoin, meanwhile, also had took terrible beatings recently over Musk's pronouncements that it will not accept Bitcoin as a payment option in purchasing Tesla cars as it chipped five percent off its value. A domino effect also led to Ethereum's breakdown last weekend to a negative 14.3 percent premium, its lowest since the start of its listing.