Category: Ethereum

Top 10 Cryptos Prices in 2016 vs 2021

Post author By Ibiam Wayas
Post date May 12, 2021

Crypto prices and market caps, 2016 (left) vs 2021 (right) [CoinMarketCap]

A lot has changed in the cryptocurrency market over the past five years. There have been many coin ranking reshuffles, with massive growth in the global market capitalization as more people got to know and invest in digital currencies.

Back in 2016, the top-ten digital currencies by market capitalization (according to data from CoinMarketCap) and their corresponding prices were:

Bitcoin (BTC) at $455.25 USD
Ethereum (ETH) at $9.82 USD
Ripple (XRP) at $0.006069 USD
Litecoin (LTC) at $3.98 USD
Dash (DASH) at $6.89 USD
DigixDAO (DGD) at $12.17 USD
Dogecoin (DOGE) at $0.000233 USD
MaidSafeCoin (MAID) at $0.052008 USD
NEM (XEM) at $0.001491 USD
FedoraCoin (TIPS) at $0.000029 USD

At the time, Bitcoin was only a three-digit price cryptocurrency ($455 USD), with a total market valuation of $7.075 billion USD. Also, Ethereum was less than $10 USD, while XRP traded around $0.006 USD, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

Crypto prices and market caps, 2016 (left) vs 2021 (right) [CoinMarketCap]

As of May 2016, the global cryptocurrency market capitalization was $8.449 billion USD.

Crypto total market capitalization [CoinMarketCap]

The Crypto Market is up by Over 29,000% Since 2016

Fast forward to today, the crypto market has seen immense growth of over 29,000 percent in the market cap – in other words, more than 290 times. The total valuation of global cryptocurrencies now sits around $2.47 trillion USD compared to $8.4 billion USD cap in the past five years. This follows the wake of more retail and institutional investors.

The leading cryptocurrency Bitcoin (BTC) saw over a 12,300 percent increase from 2016 to date, with a market capitalization of over $1 trillion USD. This means that a $100 USD investment in BTC over the past five years would be worth more than $12,000 USD in today’s value. At the same time, the second-largest cryptocurrency Ethereum (ETH) surged by over 41,000 percent, which is a much higher return compared to Bitcoin.

Some of the top-ten coins in 2016 are no longer ranking high on the list today, including DigixDAO and FedoraCoin. It remains to be seen how the list will change in the next five years. Do you think Bitcoin and Ethereum can be overthrown by the likes of Binance Coin (BNB) or even Dogecoin (DOGE)?

Binance Coin Cardano Crypto News Cryptocurrencies Ethereum

Ethereum Reaches $5k AUD

Post author By José Oramas
Post date May 10, 2021

Ethereum (ETH) price hit $5,000 AUD during the weekend, just inches away from $4,000 USD ($5,099 AUD).

ETH is one of the top cryptos having recorded significant gains in recent weeks, next to Cardano (ADA) and Binance Coin (BNB).

Top 5 cryptos by market cap on 10 May 2021

Altcoins Breaking Records

While BTC faces tough resistance, the altcoin market has been mostly bullish this weekend, with Ethereum achieving a new all-time high of $3,980 USD, maintaining a steady level between $3,800 – $3,900 USD.

Another great gainer was ADA, reached a new all-time high with a 14% gain after a sharp price drop, being traded at around $1.83 on many exchanges. The surge in price put ADA back on the fifth spot in the market according to CoinMarketCap, taking the spot of Tether (USDT). Now ADA seems to be aiming at testing the $2 psychological barrier if the bull run continues.

BNB gained over 10% in price in the last weeks, reaching $659 USD with a strong buying sentiment. If the bull run continues, the next target for BNB could be above $800 USD.

ETH vs BTC

After falling down to around $49k USD amid hashrate drops due to blackouts in China, Bitcoin recovered some of its market dominance, reaching $75k AUD on Saturday.

However, BTC failed to keep its upword trajectory, receeding to $72k AUD as the weekend trails away. At the time of writing, its price is hovering around $74k AUD.

Crypto Market Locking US$2.4 Trillion

Crypto Total Market Capitalization, 10 May 2021 [CoinMarketCap]

The total market cap added $60 billion this weekend, now sitting on a $2.46 trillion total market cap. The crypto market could experience a considerable boost if Citibank decides to add crypto-related services to its clients after seeing massive demand for crypto assets.

Bitcoin Crypto News Ethereum Gold

Bitcoin is a Store of Value, Ethereum is Powering the Crypto Economy

Post author By Caitlin Carey
Post date May 7, 2021

Bitcoin and Ethereum: The World’s Largest Cryptos

They are the King and Queen of the crypto market and for very good reasons, and can’t really be compared directly because they have very different uses cases – as explained below.

Bitcoin is a store of value asset
Ethereum is a framework powering crypto projects

Both BTC and ETH adoption is now going mainstream and it’s important that we understand the purpose of them so we don’t compare apples with oranges when deciding between them.

Bitcoin is a store of value asset

Bitcoin was originally designed to be a transactional peer-to-peer cash system as per Satoshi’s Bitcoin whitepaper. However, it has since been altered into a store of value as it cannot cope with the scaling of transactions as transaction fees soar.

Having a limited supply of 21 million Bitcoin on the BTC blockchain, and a decreasing supply – this makes it a scarce asset, and therefore, valuable to investors. Learn more about Bitcoin.

Investors worldwide have realised alternative Bitcoins store of value and been adding BTC to their personal portfolios, while institutions have been adding it to their balance sheets.

Ethereum is powering the crypto economy

Ethereum on the other hand, was developed to address the “flaws” of Bitcoin and has evolved dramatically over the past few years into “programmable money”, as per the Ethereum whitepaper.

Ethereum powers crypto projects and ecosystems:

Decentralised Finance (DeFi) – The new decentralised economy.
Non-fungible Tokens (NFTs) – Unique digital asset tokens which ownership is verified by the blockchain.
Decentralised Exchanges (DEXs) – Decentralised buy, sell and trading of cryptocurrencies and tokens.

Ethereum also is set to become a deflationary asset as it upgrades to Ethereum 2.0 hardfork in July 2021. This will see some Ether “burned” on every transaction, decreasing it’s supply.

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New Chinese Investment Fund Launches To Entice Asian Institutions Into Crypto

Post author By Crypto News Guest Authors
Post date May 6, 2021

Huobi Asset Management Launches one of Asia’s Largest Virtual Asset Funds as announced on South China Morning Post.

Huobi (Hong Kong) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Huobi Technology Holdings Limited and is one of the largest virtual asset funds in Asia, looking to meet the growing demand for cypto based investments. Huobi leads the way in the movement of intitutional adoption into cryptocurrency for the Asian market.

Following Grayscale (US), Huobi Asset Management is aimed at professional investors, offering them a virtual assets portfolio. Huobi Asset Management’s new crypto-based funds include a BTC tracker fund, ETH tracker fund, and a multi-strategy virtual asset fund.

Huobi is the second fund manager to receive approval from the Securities and Futures Commission to issue 100% virtual asset funds. Head of Huobi Asset Management, Gillian Wu, explains how the fund could be ideal for the new type of investor, looking to enter the cryptocurrency market.

“According to the professional investors’ knowledge level and risk appetite of virtual assets, we will advise our clients to choose the fund products that best suit their needs. For institutional, especially corporate clients, they want to allocate to virtual assets through a convenient and compliant channel to achieve diversification needs.
Our Bitcoin and Ethereum tracker fund, in the way of traditional financial products, solves the worries of clients who have to research on their own how to custody, how to account, how to audit this novel asset class and whether there are tax uncertainties, etc. At the same time, some ultra-high net worth individual clients, as well as some large virtual asset miners, who have previously been passively holding their virtual assets, started to look for options to achieve better returns through different market cycles compared to simple passive allocation, thus our active multi-strategy virtual asset fund is born.”
Gillian Wu

The first pioneers to shine a light on investing in cryptocurrencies were individual retailers. As Bitcoin and Ethereum become more well known and widely adopted, it is only natural that major institutions turn their attention to the crypto space and adapt to follow the trend.

Huobi will offer piece of mind to serious investors, as demand grows for those looking to invest millions. Huobi’s new fund will likely enjoy the success of Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust, which has been very well received.

Institutions Going Pro Crypto?

Below is a table of the recent cryptocurrency purchases by Institutions.

Date	Investor	Amount
28 April	Nexon	$100 Million
8 Apr 2021*	Meitu	$100 Million*
5 Apr 2021	MicroStrategy	$15 Million
18 Mar 2021	Meitu	$49 Million
12 Mar 2021*	Purpose Bitcoin ETF AUM	$900 Million*
12 Mar 2021	MicroStrategy	$15 Million
8 Mar 2021*	Aker ASA	$58 Million*
7 Mar 2021	Meitu	$40 Million
5 Mar 2021	MicroStrategy	$10 Million

Bitcoin Crypto News Ethereum

Ethereum Outperformed Bitcoin by 50% in April 2021

Post author By Ibiam Wayas
Post date May 6, 2021

Ethereum (ETH) has seen more growth in market value than Bitcoin (BTC) over the past month.

Recent market data confirmed that Ether’s monthly return for April surpassed that of Bitcoin by almost 50 percent. On a year-to-date (YTD) chart, Ethereum has gained over 350 percent in market value. Below we take a look at the reasons why ETH has performed so well in the past month or so.

#Ethereum outperformed #bitcoin last month by nearly 50%.$ETH has *always* outperformed $BTC in May.https://t.co/T0tFbdVT8g pic.twitter.com/sWm9hLxZfb
— Timothy Peterson (@nsquaredcrypto) May 3, 2021

This might not be a surprise following the increasing demand for ETH, which pushed the coin to a new all-time high above $3,000 USD.

Ethereum price chart. Source: Coingecko

Although some cryptocurrencies including Ethereum soared in April, the past month was obviously not that favourable for Bitcoin (BTC). For the first time since 2021, Bitcoin posted a negative return of -2.7 percent. BTC declined from $58,889 USD on April 1 to $57,261 on May 1.

Bitcoin price chart. Source: Coingecko

Notably, the price suddenly dropped to about $55,000 USD on April 18, and even further to $49,754 USD on April 23rd, as per data from Coingecko. Since the drop, BTC has struggled to return back to $60,000 USD level.

What’s Behind ETH’s Rise?

One possible reason for the growing price of Ethereum is the fact that the cryptocurrency is becoming more scarce. More ETH are being staked on the Ethereum 2.0 deposit contract than mined.

4.08 million ETH staking. This is $11.3 billion & 3.5% of the total supply.

In the past 3 months, growth of 1.08 million ETH. During the same time period the total ETH supply has grown by 1.18 million.

Almost the same growth rate right now. https://t.co/F0BfnAorrT pic.twitter.com/btiPOzZxFv
— mhonkasalo (@mhonkasalo) May 1, 2021

Currently, over 4.14 million ETH has been staked, according to the network explorer beaconcha.in. This represents more than 3.5 percent of the current circulating supply of ETH.

CryptoQuant, a crypto on-chain analytics platform, also confirms the scarcity of ETH. At the moment, there is less than 20 million ETH available on all crypto exchanges. ETH exchange reserve has been declining since Q3 2020, as the price of the coin began increasing.

ETH exchange reserve. Source: CryptoQuant

Crypto News Ethereum

Vitalik Now Owns $1 Billion USD Worth of Ethereum

Post author By Robert Drage
Post date May 6, 2021

Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum (ETH), has recently become a crypto billionaire due to the latest ETH price surge – propelling the cryptocurrency to new all-time highs, as well as his main account.

Current balance in Vitalik’s main wallet: Etherscan

The price of ETH at the time of writing is $3,366.89 USD, making the 27-year-old one of the richest men in the world.

1 Month Ethereum Price Change: CoinMarketCap

In 2018 Vitalik disclosed his main address, to show transparency to the ETH community. Addresses like his are usually closely monitored by communities and investors alike to spot a possible sell-off.

https://t.co/yLfy39gwB5

Though that doesn't just include sales, it also includes some gifts and charity donations.
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) October 10, 2018

Despite his staggering amount of ETH, Buterin’s disclosed wallet is only the 22nd most valuable on the network, according to data from Etherscan. He has also disclosed that he has several smaller wallets.

Ethereum Has Competition

According to DeFi Pulse, over $72 billion USD are now locked in DeFi protocols, many of which are built on top of the Ethereum blockchain. Ethereum has experience major growth thanks not only to investors but also to what is happening on the blockchain itself.

One of Ethereum’s competitors is Binance Smart Chain (BSC), which is a blockchain developed by one of the world’s largest exchanges. BSC has also experienced massive growth and recently recorded around about 5 million transactions per day, compared to the 1.5 million done by Ethereum.

Binance 3 Month Price Change: CoinMarketCap

BSC also supports dApps and smart contracts, with an average of 105,000 daily active wallets. For reference, Ethereum had an average of 75,000 active wallets per day in early April 2021.

This competition could benefit the crypto ecosystem in general, supporting an increasing adoption of blockchain technologies.

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Ethereum Is Now Worth More Than Australia’s Big 4 Banks Combined

Post author By José Oramas
Post date May 5, 2021

Ethereum’s market cap is now worth more than Australia’s four largest banks combined after ETH surpassed $3,895 AUD in price — extending above $4,413 AUD on May 3, outpacing Bitcoin and most altcoins.

Ethereum’s market cap, as per Coinmarketcap, is now worth around $490 billion AUD, with a 10% surge in just 24 hours.

Ethereum market cap in AUD Feb-May 2021 [CoinMarketCap]

For comparison, the market cap of Australia’s four largest banks can barely come close to ETH even combined together (according to 2020 data):

Commomwealth Bank of Australia (CBA): $122.7 billion AUD
Westpact Banking Corp: $60.8 billion AUD
NAB (National Australia Bank): $58.3 billion AUD
ANZ (Australia and New Zealand Banking Group): $48.8 billion AUD
Total market cap combined: $290.6 billion AUD

Ethereum Breaks Price Record After the Crash

After most crypto-assets tumbled in April’s market crash, ETH recovered quickly and remained above $2,500 USD.

One recent key event for Ethereum’s adoption was the European Investment Bank (EIB) announcing the issuance of $121 million USD digital bonds using the Ethereum blockchain.

Some analytsts suggest that growth of Ethereum has been quite organic over the last few months. The Network Value to Transaction (NVT) ratio indicates the relationship between network value and daily transaction volume. In the case of Ethereum, the NVT ratio looks on a downtrend.

As $ETH price reaches over $3,000 setting a new ATH, the NVT Ratio is driven back down towards this cycles lows.

Low NVT Ratios indicate transaction volumes are high and growing faster than the network market cap.

Today's market strength is supported by volume settled on-chain. pic.twitter.com/xKP0ustbZq
— glassnode (@glassnode) May 3, 2021

This might have been due to a number of factors, including the activation of the Berlin fork or the growing popularity of decentralised exchanges like Uniswap (UNI) requiring Ethereum for many token swaps.

Bitcoin Dogecoin Ethereum Market Analysis

Crypto Markets Outlook – 100 Day Performance DOGE, UNI, BTC, ETH

Post author By Crypto News Guest Authors
Post date April 30, 2021

Source: Coin Metrics Network Data Charts

There are many indications that we’re still in a crypto bull market, so let’s take a look at some popular coins and how they have been performing.

Which Coin Won The Last 100 Days?

The last 100 days have been a turbulent period for crypto enthusiasts. There have been some coins that delivered phenomenal returns, while others have been less impressive. Let’s compare some of the big players.

Source: Coin Metrics Network Data Charts

$100 worth of the relative safety of Bitcoin (BTC) puchased 100 days ago is now worth $135, not too shabby compared to bank interest and government bonds.

$100 worth of Ethereum (ETH) purchased 100 days ago is currently worth a more exciting $186 today driven largely by the explsion in NFTs.

Meanwhile, $100 worth of Uniswap (UNI) has rocketed to $401 in the past 100 days as traffic to the platform continues to grow.

But the real winner of the past 100 days is Dogecoin (DOGE), which would have seen $100 multiplied to a whopping $2,742 during the same timeframe. Such returns are not even considered feasible by those that invest in stocks or other ‘real world’ commodities.

Dogecoin’s Long-term Prospects

For Dogecoin investors there is a significant probability that the coin may retrace its spectacular recent run. Many serious crypto thinkers believe it to be something of a joke that does not deserve its multi-billion dollar market cap. But occasionally markets behave strangely as the past 100 days shows. A single tweet from Elon Musk can send the Dogecoin price vertical. Its value is not based on solid fundamentals or impressive whitepapers, it’s a vehicle for those enjoy memes and don’t take life too seriously.

Jackson Byrne – Crypto News Guest Author

Tags Uniswap

Crypto News Ethereum

Bullish: Ethereum 2.0 Deposit Contract Exceeds $12.9 Billion as ETH Soar

Post author By Ibiam Wayas
Post date April 23, 2021

The value of Ether (ETH) staked on the Ethereum 2.0 deposit contract has surpassed $12.9 billion AUD (i.e., $10 billion USD), according to the information on Eth2 LaunchPad.

This coincides with the recent increase in the price of the cryptocurrency.

Over 4 Million ETH Has Been Staked

During press time, a total of 4,010,886 ETH was staked on the deposit contract, meaning about 3.46 percent of the total circulating supply of ETH has been locked for Ethereum 2.0. These staked coins are worth over $10.2 billion USD, following the price of Ether at $2,560 USD on Coinmarketcap.

Additionally, the number of validators totaled 122,254, and the current annual percentage rate (APR) for staking on the network is 7.8 percent. The APR decreases as more ETH is staked on the deposit contract.

What’s Behind the Increase in Eth2 Deposit Contract

The increase in the value of assets locked in the deposit contract can be attributed to the massive growth of the value of ETH. On Wednesday, ETH reached another record high of $2,641 USD on Coinmarketcap.

The number of coins staked on Eth2 deposit contracts is also another factor. It increased significantly since the beginning of the year. This shows that many crypto enthusiasts are supportive of Ethereum 2.0 development, which will transition the second-largest blockchain to a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) era, although some might be staking for profit’s sake.

Why More Staking is Bullish For ETH

The coins staked on the deposit contract cannot be withdrawn until the development phase with such functionality is deployed – which might take two years. Hence, more staking on the network reduces the number of ETH supply in the market, thereby creating scarcity for ETH. This is bullish for the ETH holders as scarce assets are more likely to see increases in price, provided there’s high market demand for it.

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Ethereum Settled $1.9 Trillion Transactions in Q1 of 2021

Post author By Ibiam Wayas
Post date April 22, 2021

Ethereum, the second-largest blockchain network, settled about $1.9 trillion AUD ($1.5 trillion USD) in transactions within the first quarter of 2021.

Despite the congestion on Ethereum, the record today is the largest quarterly transaction volume ever settled on the blockchain, according to data from Messari, a cryptocurrency on-chain analytics platform.

Ethereum on Pace to Settled $6 Trillion Transactions in 2021

Ethereum settled $1.5 trillion in transactions in Q1 2021.

That’s more than it’s previous 7 quarters combined. pic.twitter.com/B1FJw54YGA
— Ryan Watkins (@RyanWatkins_) April 21, 2021

Messari’s analysis shows the quarterly transaction volume on Ethereum having dramatically increased recently. The transaction volume in Q1 of 2021 ($1.9 trillion AUD) surpasses that of the previous seven quarters combined. Based on this record, Messari predicts that about $6 trillion USD transactions will be settled on the Ethereum blockchain, including ERC-standard stablecoin transactions.

Two factors could be causing high transaction volume on Ethereum: the increase in Ether (ETH) price prompting trades, and other network usage. The former might be the primary reason for such record as ETH increased by over 150 percent within the first quarter of 2021 and 230 percent year-to-date (YTD).

Ethereum Network Usage

TRON and Binance Smart Chain (BSC) might be the leading blockchain networks in terms of daily transactions; however, Ethereum is still a big player. On Tuesday, Ethereum recorded about 1.55 million transactions, which is the highest since the network’s history. On a YTD chart, the daily transaction volume on Ethereum is up by over 32 percent.

Ethereum daily transactions chart [etherscan.io]

Ethereum has been battling network congestion for quite a while. Coupling that with relatively slow transactions and high fees, some projects and users have left Ethereum in favour of alternative blockchains. This scalability issue might be resolved with the complete deployment of Ethereum 2.0 – a major upgrade that apparently will not be completed until the next two to three years.