ETH/USD bears threaten to push the price below $140.00

• ETH/USD is sliding towards the critical short-term support level.
• A sustainable move above $151.60 will improve the technical picture.

ETH/USD has resumed the sell-off after a short-lived consolidation period. The second-largest digital asset has lost about 1.3% of its value since the beginning of Monday and slipped under $141.00 handle. At the time of writing, ETH/USD is changing hands at $140.60 amid expanding volatility. 

Ethereum developer Justin Drake proposed to launch Ethereim 2.0 Phase 0 on July 30, 2020, on the fifth birthday of the network. However, other developers believe that there is no point in postponing the release, considering that it is almost production-ready. 

It is worth mentioning that Ethereum rolled out the Istanbul update and deployed a block explorer for the testnet of Ethereum 2.0 earlier in December. The phase 0 of Serenity will be implemented in the first quarter of 2010. 

Ethereum’s technical picture

From the mid-term point of view, ETH/USD needs to recover above the resistance area of $151.00 – $151.60, which served as an upside boundary of the previous consolidation channel. However, the road to the target level is packed with technical hurdles, including a combination of SMA50 (Simple Moving Average) 4-hour and the upper line of 4-hour Bollinger Band and at $145.00 and SMA100 4-hour the middle line of the daily Bollinger Band at $147.00. 

A sustainable move above $151.60 will open up the way for a more sustainable recovery towards the longer-term target at $165.40 (SMA50 daily). The coin has been trading below the line since November 18.

On the downside, once $140.00 gives way, the sell-off will gain traction with the next focus on $136.50 ( the lower line of the weekly Bollinger Band). If it is broken, ETH/USD will enter an uncharted territory with the next support as low as $120.50, which is the lowest level since December 2018.

ETH/USD, the daily chart