Fundstrat Head of Research Tom Lee predicted that Ethereum would hit a temporary bottom Tuesday before beginning a climb beyond $5,000, shortly before the token began inching upward.
Citing a message sent to him by Fundstrat Global Head of Technical Strategy Mark Newton, Lee, who also serves as chair of ETH treasury BitMine Immersion, endorsed the view that Ethereum will not fall lower than $4,000 in the near term.
Newtown suggested in his message that the altcoin will "bottom out sometime in (the) next 12 hours near $4,300," although it was not precisely clear when he sent the message to Lee.
Ethereum currently dipped as low as $4,341 early Monday before rallying to its current level above $4,550. It is down about 1% over the past 24 hours and roughly 8% since reaching an all-time high of $4,946 on Sunday.
A Myriad Linea market found that 80% of the respondents believe that Ethereum will breach $5,000 this year.
(Disclosure: Myriad is a prediction market and engagement platform developed by Dastan, parent company of an editorially independent Decrypt.)
Newton and Lee suggested that the cryptocurrency could climb as high as $5,450, with an accompanying chart indicating that it could return to around $4,800 by the middle of September.
Not everyone agreed that Ethereum will rally in the immediate future, with TradeNation Senior Market Analyst David Morrison telling Decrypt that further declines may be coming in the near term.
"While I would agree that there could certainly be more upside as we head towards year-end, it remains significantly 'overbought' when considering its daily MACD [moving average convergence divergence]," he said. "To me, that suggests that it may pull back further from current levels before it can go appreciably higher, or, at the very least, there's a period of sideways consolidation which could help blow some froth off it, similarly to the major US stock indices."
Morrison argued that Bitcoin currently looks more attractive in its upside potential, given that its daily MACD has now returned to neutral levels.
Other analysts also contended that Ethereum's price could fall further in the near term, including eToro's Simon Peters.
He told Decrypt,"Seasonality could play a part as September is historically one of the worst performing months for cryptoasset prices and with the price having rallied 250% since April,hitting a new all-time high and looking a little technically overbought,it may present an opportunity for some long standing holders to realize gains."