Ethereum made a large move to the downside overnight, falling 10% from yesterday’s high in reaction to the delay in the Constantinople hard fork.
Despite rallying up to $131 on Tuesday, Ethereum eventually succumbed to selling pressure, falling to as low as $116 before finding support.
Having bounced off a key level of support, Ethereum looks in relatively good shape moving into the coming weeks. If $113 breaks to the downside, the third largest cryptocurrency could well fall to as low as $81.45.
The price action reflected the uncertainty in the market, with the Constantinople delay bringing to light an unexpected attack vector.
[SECURITY ALERT] #Constantinople upgrade is temporarily postponed out of caution following a consensus decision by #Ethereum developers, security professionals and other community members. More information and instructions are below. https://t.co/p2znO8HGxf
— Ethereum Foundation (@ethereum) January 15, 2019
The attack vector would have been made possible by the EIP 1283 update, which introduces reduced gas fees for storage options.
Smart contract auditing research company ChainSecurity exposed the vulnerability on Tuesday. They went on to outline just how damaging it could have been by stating: “In short, the attacker just stole other people’s Ether out of the PaymentSharer contract and can continue to do so.”
No revised date has been set for the Constantinople hard fork, however an eventual announcement could spur price action back to the upside, with $150 and $160 remaining as key levels of resistance.
The drop in price saw Ripple (XRP) overtake Ethereum as the second largest cryptocurrency. XRP now has a market cap of $13.6 billion while Ethereum’s lies just under $13 billion.
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