Ethereum Bulls Eye $410 As Altcoins Post Positive Returns

The weekend and early part of the week brought few surprises. Bitcoin, after powering higher last week, stalled out around $11,700. Ethereum told a different story, posting a 4.5% gain to reach $406, and pulling the rest of the major altcoins higher. Litecoin climbed 5.6% to land at $62.50. XRP jumped 2.27% to $0.288.

Ethereum has gained 208% against the dollar. The number-two cryptocurrency by market cap started the week on solid ground and could soon test resistance at $410. Analyst Crypto Wolf tracks the ETH/BTC pair, expecting an uptrend that could reach 0.0555 per bitcoin. He noted in a Twitter post that the pair broke above a seven-month falling wedge. A bullish MACD divergence appeared on the monthly chart, suggesting the pair could rally to 0.0850 per bitcoin, the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement level.

Meanwhile, Ethereum's fee market experienced a dramatic reversal. Network fees hit record levels before dropping 80% over the weekend. The fees had been rising through mid-July. Santiment, which tracks on-chain metrics, called the decline an "opportunity" for "cheaper on-chain operations."

Other tokens joined Ethereum higher. Tezos, Aave, Algorand, Cosmos, Synthetix, and Basic Attention Token all moved up. Aragon jumped highest among the top 100, gaining 26%. Swipe shot up 17%. NEM, Siacoin, and THETA each climbed between 11% and 14%. Traders pointed to forecasts of increased Bitcoin volatility as a tailwind for the altcoin sector. Not all tokens benefited. OMG Network dropped 4.56% to $6.14. Augur fell 6% to $24.40. Nano also fell 6%, trading at $1.31.