Ether prices are up 11 percent so far today, indicating increasing market confidence that ethereum may sail through its next big upgrade.

The "Byzantium" code, which is a part of the larger upgrade called "Metropolis," will be enforced this Sunday via a hard fork of the ethereum blockchain. Though past hard forks have been mostly smooth, an emergency hard fork last year saw some continue to mine the old blockchain, creating a new asset, ethereum classic, and some users and firms lost funds in the event.

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So far, however, developers have indicated that they are confident the hard fork will be activated without issue – and traders seem to agree.

At press time, ether is trading at around $340 levels. Week-on-week, the cryptocurrency is up 10.7 percent, while month-on-month, ether is enjoying 23 percent gains.

The price action analysis suggests ether could scale new multi-week highs and possibly extend the rally up to the September high ahead of the hard fork.

Daily chart

The daily chart shows that:

The upside break of the sideways channel (i.e. consolidation ends with a strong upside move) signals continuation of the rally from the Sept. 15 low of $298.29.
The bullish break on the relative strength index (RSI) validates the bullish break on the price chart.
All major averages – 50-MA, 100-MA and 200-MA – are perfectly aligned one below the other in favor of the bulls.

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Ether looks set to test September high of $396 in the short run.
On the downside, only a break below the 50-day moving average level of $307 would abort the bullish view on the daily chart.

Tuning fork image via Shutterstock

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