Written by: George Prior Ethereum’s price will “continue to soar” throughout 2019 – and a main driver of the continued rally will be this week’s hard fork.The comments from influential tech expert Ian McLeod of Thomas Crown Art, the world’s leading art-tech agency, come as the second largest cryptocurrency has secured an impressive rally over the last month.Mr McLeod observes: “Ethereum has made a bullish move and broke the $125.00 resistance - giving the crypto naysayers and doom-mongers a robust signal that this digital currency is on the upward trajectory once again.“Ethereum’s rally is part of a wider cryptocurrency rally since the beginning of the year, with other major coins, including Bitcoin and XRP, also securing important gains.“The bulls are back in town.”He continues: “Whilst we can expect 2019 to be dominated by a considerably more bullish sentiment than in 2018 across the major digital assets, I think it is likely that Ethereum will be the standout winner this year for three key reasons.“First, the hard fork set to take place on 16 January. The hard fork will mean Ethereum miner rewards fall from three ether to two and decrease the block time, resulting in a faster network. This is a key part of a major Ethereum upgrade and the markets are excited.“There’s a possibility the date of the hard fork might be pushed back a little, but traders are managing this into expectations.”“Second, oracles. Oracles - data feeds that deliver information into the smart contract from third parties - will inevitably drive adoption of Ethereum smart contracts.“This is because smart contracts using decision-making on real-world metrics can be expected to find relevant use cases among consumers, firms, and organizations, amongst others. And, of course, as adoption and utility of Ethereum smart contracts increase, so will Ethereum’s price.”Related: Institutional Capital to ‘Considerably Expand’ Crypto Market in 2019 Related: Will Cryptocurrencies Offer Safe Haven If Global Economy Slows? Thomas Crown Art is already a global pioneer in using Ethereum smart contracts.Ian McLeod comments: “We’ve created a groundbreaking solution for artists and art collectors and galleries by giving the capability to use new works of art as a literal ‘store of value’ and serve as a cryptocurrency wallet for owners whilst providing an independent method to conclusively prove the provenance of artwork quickly and easily, and to view an immutable chain of ownership.“Using an Ethereum blockchain to authenticate artwork is an ideal use-case for distributed ledger technology. It provides 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 third party independently.”Thomas Crown Art’s tech expert concludes: “The sentiment data and technical analysis suggests that Ethereum’s rally, to be fuelled further by the hard fork, will continue in the short to medium term.“It is likely that this will positively impact on the rest of the cryptocurrency sector.”
