Ethereum (ETH) has broken below the ascending channel and is now at the mercy of the bears as there is no floor in sight. The 4H chart for ETH/USD shows the price in free fall after breaking below the 61.8% Fib level. In other markets this would be an alarming sign of significant further downside to come but in a market with a combined market cap of just over $100 billion, this could be a non-event. That being said, there does appear to be an orchestrated move to deliberately instill fear in the market. The past few weeks we have seen many announcements and news articles spin facts the wrong way. We already know that positive news are no longer reflecting in the price but it was surprising to see that the recent Van Eck Bitcoin ETF rejection also had no significant effect.

Perhaps this is why the market makers took matters in their own hands and decided to give fear a little bit of help to drag the price down so they can shake out the remaining weak hands. The way Ethereum (ETH) crashed in the past 24 hours shows that there are still plenty of weak hands in the market. The price cannot move up until most of these quick buck artists are out of the game. They are not going to quit as long as they believe there is a good chance they can turn in a quick profit either to the upside or the downside. So, things have to become uncertain once again like they have. Most of the traders that look for solid supports and resistances to trade cryptocurrencies are now out of clues as to what is going to follow.

The most likely scenario at this point is that professional traders will stay out of the market for the time being whereas retail traders would look for opportunities to short as most of them already expect the price to fall. In all fairness, the price might fall again and quite lower than the December, 2018 lows but in order for that to happen, we have to see a retest of market structure first. Only when the price is rejected at the previous market structure is when we can see the next crash follow. However, most retail traders expect the price to fall in one go whereas professional traders or whales have a lot of patience and they are willing to use that patience to setup traps for those that lack it.

Shorting Ethereum (ETH) on margin at this point is no different than longing it on margin around the top. The weekly chart for ETH/BTC shows that Ethereum (ETH) is close to breaking past the 21 Week EMA against Bitcoin (BTC). This means one of two things under current circumstances. Either we are ready for the next altcoin season and the price is going to begin recovering in the weeks and months ahead or we are ready for another correction that could last the remainder of 2019 and possibly 2020.