It’s been a wild week of trading for Ethereum.
The second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap today fell to $174 per coin—an almost 7% drop in price compared to yesterday’s peak of $187.
But just last Monday, ETH was trading for just $158. So while Ethereum has struggled to break past the $200 per coin resistance line, according to data from TradingView, the asset is still up nearly 10% from it stood just one week ago.
In fact, last Thursday, the price of Ethereum surged by more than 10% following news of an influx in interest in the crypto asset from institutional investors at Grayscale. ETH seemingly rode that wave through most of the weekend.
Today, however, the market has corrected, with the price of Bitcoin falling by 4% to below $7,000 once again. Every coin in the top 20 by market cap, with the exception of Stellar (XLM), is down.
So while ETH appears to be following a broader trend, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention the bad Ethereum-related news that broke earlier today.
ConsenSys, the New York-based Ethereum incubator (which also funds Decrypt), today announced plans to lay off as much as 14% of its staff, as the company, like so many other businesses across the United States and the world, continues to weather the COVID-19 storm.
In a Zoom meeting with employees, ConsenSys Founder Joseph Lubin said he reviewed several options to avoid the layoffs, including government assistance programs and potential outside investment. In the end, however, the layoffs could not be avoided, he said.
It’s the second time in two months that ConsenSys has announced layoffs, the first occurring last February as the company sought to split itself into two separate enterprises: an investment firm and a software venture. So while crypto as a whole is suffering a bit today, it would not be surprising if the news of layoffs had caused some ETH holders to lose some confidence.