Ethereum Classic Price Analysis: ETC/USD range-bound below $12.00 as the network gets ready for a hardfork

• Ethereum Classic developers has announced a core dev call before the upgrade.
• ETC/USD is poised for further uspide after a short-term technical correction.

Ethereum Classic (ETC) has lost over 3% in recent 24 hours to trade at $11.66. The coin hit the recent low at $10.71 on January 31 and has been range-bound with bullish bias ever since. ETC is the 11th largest digital asset with the current market value of $1.35 billion. The coin has gained nearly 190% since the beginning of the year.

Ethereum Classic network gets ready for a hardfork

The Ethereum Classic developers are finalizing their plan before the upcoming Phoenix hardfork. The team has announced a Core Dev Call scheduled on February 5, Wednesday. THe call is considered important as the agenda includes the decision on the timing and the procedure of the major network update. 

This call is very important because, for now, the next confirmed upgrade in ETC is only Aztlán, which was found to have a compatibility flaw after it was moved to accepted status as per the Ethereum Classic Improvement Proposal (ECIP) process.

Basically, the team will decide on whether to cancel Aztlán fork due to the flaw, or to activated it and add a parallel fork, named “Phoenix“ to fix the flaw and the double-hard-fork problem

ETC/USD: technical picture

From the long-term point of view, ETC/USD retains positive bias as long as it stays above SMA100 weekly (currently at $8.85). While the the coin is well-positioned for the further recovery, we will need to see a sustainable move above psychological $12.00 to attract new buyers to the market. However, the RSI on a daily chart has started reversing from the overbought territory, which implies that the coin may retreat towards the support area before the upside trend is resumed. 

The firs support awaits the coin on approach to $11.00. The coin tried to break below this area on three occasions during the previous week, but each time new buyers popped in and engineered a recovery. Once this barrier is cleared, the sell-off is likely to gain traction with the next target on $10.00 followed by the SMA100 weekly at $8.85.

On the upside, we will need to see a sustainable move above $12.00 and the recent high of $12.86. This will bring $13.00 into view. Once this resistance out of the way, we may see further growth towards $14.00 and $14.80 – consolidation top registered in August 2018.

ETC/USD daily chart