By Alicia Maher
BBVA Switzerland (one of Europe’s leading banks) has confirmed that it will soon start offering ether-related services in addition to its current crypto-related services.
More Crypto-Related Services
This new service will offer the bank’s large clientele an additional way to get exposed to crypto investments. However, the bank has clarified that only customers owning a ‘next gen’ account can trade BTC and ETH from their portfolio. BBVA stated that account holders with the bank’s mobile app could perform crypto-related and fiat transactions from the app. Also, any user can convert their digital assets to fiat currency (such as USD or EUR) from the app.
The Top Switzerland bank is the first European bank to offer ether-related services. The bank’s chief executive claimed that most of its customers’ clamor for this service prompted it to start offering it.
Exposure For Diversification
Many of BBVA’s customers lauded the bank’s asset custody initiative as this service enabled them to completely control their holdings even as they invest in the highly volatile virtual asset industry. The bank’s announcement further reiterated that many of its clients (especially institutional customers) seeking to diversify their investment portfolio through the bank made several requests for this service.
The top bank further disclosed that it intends to expand its digital asset offerings in the near future. The bank is already a leader among other financial institutions in Europe that offer crypto-related services and won’t stop providing its crypto-related services.
ETH Price Is On A Downtrend
ETH is retesting a crucial support price, suggesting that its price will go further downwards. It has retested the $3.9K range three times over the past 60 days and is about to hit it again. Another period of intense selling pressure will possibly cause a 13% loss and trade at about $3.42K.
If it falls to that level, the bulls can step in to avoid a further crash. But if the bulls’ attempts should fail, ETH might be heading towards the $3K price range. If the situation becomes critical, market makers might seek liquidity by forcing ETH prices below the $2.78K range.
24-hour price chart – ETH/USD. Source: TradingView
Conversely, ETH can establish a swing over the $4.5K range, which would create a bullish opportunity and invalidate the bearish forecast. Furthermore, if the second leading cryptocurrency can establish a 24-hour close over the $5K price, it might cause a FOMO that will trigger an intense buying pressure to nullify the bearish analysis.
Ether’s Last 7-Month Performance
Ether has surged by 465% in its YTD and has been up by 66% since June. The positive performances since that period have been mainly fueled by the positive effects of the London Hardfork upgrade, which necessitated the switch to a PoS mechanism.
Also, the Ethereum blockchain has been the main building block for the fast-rising crypto sectors (DeFi and NFT). More than 90% of DeFi and NFT projects are built on Ethereum, which gives it an edge over its supposed killers (like Cardano and Solana).