Bitcoin grabs all the headlines with its attempts to break 20K and as trading on BTC futures, including shorts, begins today. With all the fuss, the “second” cryptocurrency is certainly worth watching.

The price of Ethereum made a big jump last week, hitting a high of $800. Yet after the huge leap, ETH/USD seems to consolidate. Price action in this coin seems somewhat more rational than that of its bigger brother, and not for the first time.

Both bitcoin and Ethereum use the blockchain technology, but ETH is more sophisticated, offering conditionality on contracts. The various current and future applications of the currency make it more interesting despite the excitement over price action in BTC.

Ethereum is trading at $709 at the time of writing. Looking at the daily chart, we see that the closing price is around these levels in the past few days, while offering quite a bit of volatility in between.

Support awaits at $560, which was the level that ETH/USD found support at after the big jump. Further below, we find $519, which served as resistance before the big breakout. At current levels, resistance awaits at $800, the swing high of December 16th. And where is the next cap? The very round level of $1,000 is clearly the next barrier that may attract more attention.

Will Ethereum eventually pass Bitcoin as the crypto coin of choice for traders? A lot depends on what happens with the possibility to go short on BTC that begins today on CME. Yet it also depends on developments in Ethereum.