An Italian airport staff member took advantage of his workplace computer systems illegal mining of Ethereum (ETH).

According to Rai News report, a man who was in charge of managing the computer system at Lamezia Terme International Airport in the southwest region of Calabria was caught illegally mining Ethereum (ETH). Moreover, the authorities caught the culprit through security footage cam.

Ethereum is the second biggest cryptocurrency in the market. It is a blockchain-based open-source, decentralized software platform. According to CoinGecko, Ether price is at $384, with a 24-hour trading volume of $13.73 billion, at the time of writing.

ETH Price Chart (Source: TradingView)

The miner was employed by Sacal SpA, the firm that is responsible for maintaining the Lamezia airport. The report states that he exploited the computer infrastructure of Sacal SpA by infecting it with crypto-mining malware. On noticing some issues in the system, other Sacal workers informed border police.

The investigation involves both police officers and airport officials. In addition, there were five Ethereum mining rigs in two separate control rooms. Moreover, the analysis of IP addresses associated with the equipment helped to find the mining pool.

Report said,

The investigations, coordinated by the Lamezia Terme Public Prosecutor’s Office, were conducted with technical activities that made it possible to examine the IP addresses associated with the machines installed, to identify the site of the ‘Ethermine’ pool (used for ‘mining’ of the Ethereum cryptocurrency) and monitor the site.

Recently, 100 smuggled cryptocurrency miners were seized by authorities in Abkhazia earlier this week. As reported by U.Today, earlier this month a Hungarian politician also initiated controversy after being busted for stealing electricity from his office to mine Bitcoin.

 

StakeHound collaborates with DASH NEXT and Dash Core Group, allows Dash holders to access decentralized finance (DeFi) applications while earning staking rewards.

Newly launched StakedDASH has become a bridge between DASH and Ethereum DeFi ecosystems. It allows DASH holders to generate further yield. Through DeFi applications whereas at the same time continue receiving stable staking rewards. 

DASH NEXT Co-Founder Felix Mago said,

With DeFi, different Blockchains are finally coming together. I am very excited about this partnership as it provides DASH users the benefits of DeFi applications. Such as lending or borrowing, and Ethereum users with an easy way to use DASH’s established global payment ecosystem.

StakedDASH is tradable in major DeFi platforms like UniSwap, Curve, Aave, and others, using the Radix or Ethereum networks. They can also be converted into the original Dash tokens at any point.

In the meantime, the DASH tokens held by StakeHound will be conducted in a Dash masternode. And earn the standard rate of network rewards, which is issued to users as additional stakedDASH.

This enables Dash holders to gain the profit of network staking, but without needing to lock up the 1,000 DASH required to create their own masternode. The amount required to stake through StakeHound is a minimum of 1 DASH, at the time of writing worth $68.8.

Founder and CEO of StakeHound Albert Castellana have mentioned his intention, and dedication to explore DeFi capabilities to build and integrate DeFi on Dash Platform after the upcoming launch of mainnet.

Key Takeaways:

• Ethereum (ETH) reached near the $370 resistance and dropped sharply.
• ETH technical indicators and high trend-line.
• Ethereum price prediction in 2021.

 

Ethereum (ETH) reached near the $370 resistance and dropped sharply towards $350 showing bearish signs and it might continue to drop down.

ETH might be somewhat less popular than Bitcoin. Unfortunately, this hasn’t stopped the second biggest cryptocurrency in the world from gaining a few profits over Bitcoin. However, according to Coingecko, ETH price is $346.6 at the time of writing. 

Ethereum (ETH) Price Analysis (Sept 28 to Oct 4)

Last week, Ethereum surpassed the resistance level of $355 and $360. In addition, ETH price failed to gain bullish momentum above the $370 and $375 resistance level. And alsoether price started a sharp decline. 

It broke the $355 support level and moved into a negative zone. There was also a break below a major ascending channel with support near $355.

The price tested the $335 support zone, where the bulls took a strong stand. Recently, there was an upside correction above the $340 level. Ether traded above the 23% Fib retracement level of the downward move from the $369 high to $336 swing low.

If Ether fails to stay above the $335 support, there is a risk of a sharp decline towards the next major support at $315 or $310. Any further losses could affect the price towards the $300 support.

Ethereum (ETH) Technical Indicators

MACD – The MACD for ETH/USD is moving into the bullish zone slowly.

RSI – RSI for ETH/USD is well below the 50 levels.

Support Level – $335

Resistance Level – $355

Ethereum (ETH) High Trend-Line

ETH/USD has been one of the surprises of the post-March collapse. Broken above its June 2019 high, while BTC is lagging. Despite the success, there is a particular pattern that holders want to see breaking upwards.

Higher High trend-line meet on the 1W candles of August 20, 2018, June 24, 2019 and recently August 21, 2020. The middle of the Channel will serve as a Resistance/ Support level at times. Every Higher High is on the 1.15 Fib extension of the previous Low-High leg.

Ethereum (ETH) Price Prediction 2021

For instance, zooming out and looking towards Ethereum’s macro price action. Analysts observed that ETH price may reach $5.5k in 2021. 

The Analyst mentioned in a tweet,

$ETH 2021 Chart..the overall upside momentum and possibility over the coming years could be $5500 target.

Ethereum’s firm price prediction in 2021 is $500. Furthermore, it may also reach between $600-$800 come January 2021.

Ethereum’s bullish prediction for 2021 is within $800. However, this is evident from the double in price observed from March until August. This may be possible as the DeFi market continues to thrive amid many exchange listings. Moreover, many exchanges today are supporting various DeFi activities, especially yield farming.

Glassnode data shows Ethereum’s total transaction fees recorded their highest-ever earnings in September 2020, stood at an all-time high of $166 million for the month which is more than the $26 million taken in Bitcoin fees.

The major factor behind this rise is the growth of the decentralized finance (DeFi) market in the crypto space. Moreover, miners are individuals or entities who use computing rigs to maintain and mine blocks on proof-of-work cryptocurrencies for rewards.

Some miners explained that much of the growth came as increased trading activity in low-cap DeFi projects and non-fungible tokens. For instance, the Ethereum price is at $352.45 with a 24-hour trading volume of over $14.1 billion, according to Coingecko.

As per data, in March and April Ethereum miners made an average of $4 million in fees. However, Miners pocketed $22 million and $32 million in June and July respectively as the DeFi industry started to gain steam due to the launch of lending protocol Compound. 

At the start of 2020, the monthly Ethereum fees were just $1.5 million. This is similar to total value locked (TVL) in DeFi, which first broke the $1 billion in February but surged over $11 billion in summer, according to DeFi Pulse.