Ethereum price analysis: ETH/USD struggles to stay above $600; Vitalik Buterin put much hope on second layer solutions

• ETH/USD recovery momentum is fading, but $600 limits the downside for the time being.
• Ethereum creator is positive about second-layer solutions.

Ethereum is changing hands at $604, struggling to stay above $600 handle amid massive sell-off on the cryptocurrency market. The second largest coin is down 2.2% since the start of the day with current market value $60B, Ethereum trading is most active on Bitfinex and OKEx with combined daily average volume $1.8B.

Looking technically, ETH/USD $600 has turned from a strong resistance into a strong support where fresh buying interest is likely to appear. Once it is broken, Ethereum will bump into  another support, created by  200-SMA (hourly chart) currently at $570. On the upside, the near-term resistance is spotted at $630 (double top) and 23.6% Fibo at $652.  

Meanwhile,  Ethereum co-creator Vitalik Buterin believes that  second-layer solutions such as Plasma and Sharding will enable the network to handle  one million transactions per second. He shared his views on the topic speaking in  OmiseGO AMA session.

“The reason I think layer 1 and layer 2 [networks]are complementary is because ultimately, if you look at the math, the scalability gains from the layer 1 improvements and layer 2 improvements do ultimately multiply with each other”,  he said explained.

ETH/USD, the hourly chart