Australian Analyst Matt Harcourt of Apollo Capital, the country’s leading crypto-asset investment firm, recently spoke to DMARGE about crypto trends in 2021. While the discussion focused largely on Bitcoin (BTC), it’s Ethereum (ETH) that’s making headlines today after securing a new all-time high (ATH) above its previous record of AUD$1,850 (US$1,420).
Ethereum was one of the best-performing assets of 2020, gaining over 800% in value throughout the year. After starting the year at the extremely low price of AUD$166, ETH has steadily climbed to its new ATH, only suffering a brief dip during the early days of the COVID-19 outbreak.
In mid-2020, a thriving decentralized finance (DeFi) market emerged that was largely developed on Ethereum’s ERC20 protocol. Although DeFi had a somewhat bumpy start with several projects collapsing or exit-scamming, it nevertheless helped to boost Ethereum’s price and should continue to do so into 2021. 24-hour volume on the Ethereum network has also seen extreme growth this year, peaking at $140 billion on January 4.
Harcourt believes there is room for more growth going into 2021, citing a ‘broken’ financial system that will help boost interest in cryptocurrencies.
“…there is a ‘broken’ (I use that word loosely) financial system that will inevitably be replaced by the more open, fair and efficient system that is Bitcoin and blockchain technology (Ethereum, Decentralised Finance),” he told Australian news outlet DMARGE.
However, he noted that now may not be the best time to buy as prices are very high. “A good time to enter the market may come in 1, 2 or 3 months as I think Bitcoin will end 2021 at a higher price,” he said. It looks like he might be right, as other market indicators are suggesting a possible retrace from the current overbought level.
The supply of Bitcoin on exchanges is currently at the highest its been in nine months, suggesting traders are getting ready to sell. With Bitcoin already up by a massive 25 percent just in 2021 alone, buying power must surely start dissipating soon. Even the institutional interest that drove Bitcoin to new highs through late 2020 is beginning to wane, and retail investors appear to be diversifying into altcoins.
Over the past 24 hours, smaller-cap cryptocurrencies like AAVE, ATOM, and MIOTA have all enjoyed gains of between 7 to 12 percent. In the same period, Bitcoin has seen barely any change at all, suggesting that this record-breaking month-long rally that saw it double in price may finally be exhausted.
There is a serious growth in the number of Bitcoin addresses containing at least 1,000 Bitcoin (BTC). This is evident as the number of these BTC addresses are already higher this year when compared to the record throughout the past year, according to the information shared by Arcane Research. Such massive growth highlights the increasing level of interest in the leading cryptocurrency among deep-pocketed and institutional investors.
Bitcoin Whales Addresses are Increasing
From January 2020 to December, Bitcoin addresses with at least 1,000 Bitcoin increased by only over 6.7 percent, Arcane Research shared, citing data from Glassnode. However, as the price of Bitcoin began rising notably in December, the number of these whale addresses began increasing as well. From December to January 2021, the addresses increased by 7.2 percent, surpassing the whole record in 2020.
This indicates that there was a strong BTC buying momentum among deep-pocketed investors in the cryptocurrency market, more precisely, in December. For more insight, the Bitcoin distribution list from Bitinfocharts shows that 2,318 addresses are holding between 1,000 – 10,000 BTC. There are only 99 addresses holding at least 10,000 – 100,000 Bitcoin, while only one address holds more than 100,000 BTC (over US$5 billion), which belong to the Huobi exchange.
The Number of Ethereum Addresses are Declining
While Bitcoin whale addresses have skyrocketed lately, the second-largest cryptocurrency, Ether (ETH), is seeing a drop in small-sized addresses. Per Glassnode, the addresses with +10 ETH has decreased to a five-month low of 282,063, while the +100 ETH addresses decreased to a six-month low of 50,483. Also, addresses with +1,000 ETH declined to a three-year low of 6,975.
The Ethereum 2.0 staking and DeFi could be two possible reasons behind the decreasing number of Ethereum addresses.
It’s safe to mention that 2020 was the biggest year for Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), and some other digital currencies in the market. Despite the March crash caused by the coronavirus pandemic, these two leading cryptocurrencies came out so strong, with Bitcoin posting more than 200 percent price growth since the year. So, 2021 is already here with lots of uncertainties. Considering some factors – to be discussed below – the crypto market might post another substantial record this year.
Watch out for This Trends
More Institutional Players:
To many prominent industry players, it’s indisputable that more corporate and institutional investors will enter the cryptocurrency market this year. Last year, MicroStrategy, a publicly-traded business intelligence company, stepped in the market, buying a substantial amount of Bitcoin that currently cost around US$1 billion. Such a bold move – which is paying off well – was followed by more companies such as Square Inc., and others.
These companies see Bitcoin as a good hedge asset against inflation. Thus, following the uncertainties in the world’s economy, more big-name companies are likely to allocate some of their reserve to Bitcoin, which is a good factor for the cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin Surpassing US$50,000
Seeing how far the leading cryptocurrency has come since the past, one can easily predict that Bitcoin might exceed US$50,000 this year. For the record, BTC made another all-time high (ATH) today above US$41,000. This is coming after the crypto’s previous ATH at US$35,000 on January 6. The demand is getting stronger, as active addresses have been on the rise.
Looks like a new ATH for $BTC active addresses is in ladies and gents! Previous cycle benchmark–when aa's recorded new highs–was around late 2016/early 2017. pic.twitter.com/nlweUuQVlT
As we expect more corporate and institutional buys, there could be a US$50,000 priced BTC, later in 2021.
Ether Making new ATH
The second-largest crypto is only about ten percent away from its all-time high, many many industry players are optimistically waiting for another ATH. Just like Bitcoin, Ether has gained a lot since the past, rising from below US$200 during the COVID-19-led market crash to over US$1,200 at the time of writing.
Recently, Crypto News Australia reported that ETH supply on exchanges has been decreasing for months to Ethereum 2.0 staking, custody, and DeFi. An analyst had mentioned that such development is healthy for the cryptocurrency. Possibly, the crypto will make a new ATH if the momentum is maintained.
Disclaimer: While this report sounds bullish for Bitcoin and Ether, it’s certainly not financial advice. Do your own research and trade cautiously.
Ethereum users have since shown a huge level of commitment to Ethereum 2.0 staking, even after the development phase 0 was launched. For this reason and more, a significant number of Ether (ETH) has been leaving the cryptocurrency exchanges, which is quite a good development for ETH in the long term, according to industry experts. Possibly, this could also be a factor contributing to the growing price of the second-largest crypto.
At the time of writing, Ether was trading at the price of US$1,226 on Coinmarketcap, a digital currency price tracking platform. The cryptocurrency now has a market capitalization above US$140 billion.
Milestone: 2% of ETH has Been Staked
According to the information shared on Thursday by Crypto Quant, a crypto analytics platform, the number of staked ETH on the Ethereum 2.0 deposit contract is worth two percent of the crypto’s current supply. This is another evidence that many Ethereum users are optimistic about the upcoming Eth2 network. That said, it’s worth noting that the current circulating supply is 114,154,295 ETH, and the staked two percent accounts for about 2.29 million ETH.
2% of $ETH supply is now staked in ETH 2.0 deposit contract. The total value staked is 2.29M $ETH.
These coins staked on the Ethereum 2.0 deposit contract cannot be withdrawn, at least until the next Eth2 development phase, thereby making the coins illiquid. Many experts relayed their thoughts that such development is quite healthy for ETH. Precisely, Ki Young Ju, the CEO of Crypto Quant, recently opined on Twitter that “illiquidity makes the ETH price go higher in the long-term.”
With the increasing staking rate for Eth2, Ki Young Ju had mentioned on Twitter that Ether “is the most undervalued asset in crypto finance.” On January 4th, all crypto exchanges’ ETH reserves decreased by 20 percent compared to May 2020. Evidently, some of these coins are flowing to the Ethereum 2.0 deposit contract, including decentralized exchanges (DEX) or for custody.
$ETH is the most undervalued asset in crypto finance.
“Whatever it is, it’s good for $ETH as decreasing market supply. Whales might use DEX for dumping, but at the same time, DEX drives Defi growth,” he added.
The year 2020 can be summed up in two distinct phases for the digital asset market: a half year of strong growth, followed by a no less sharp decline. Nothing unusual for this ecosystem. Nevertheless, prices remain at higher levels than at the beginning of the year. For Bitcoin, which is the primary asset, we are nevertheless seeing +300% growth over the year, which preserves its status as the most attractive asset in all types of markets.
Today we’re going to look at the top 10 best performing crypto of 2020 so far, that gave huge returns to traders and investors.
1. Hex (HEX) +8870%
HEX is an ERC20 token designed and launched by Richard Heart on 2 December 2019 on the Ethereum network. HEX is designed to be a store of value to replace the Certificate of Deposit as the blockchain counterpart of that financial product used in traditional financial markets. HEX is also designed to leverage off the emerging DeFi (Decentralised Finance) ecosystem in cryptocurrencies within the Ethereum network. HEX uses the Ethereum network for the transaction layer (sending and receiving HEX tokens, as well as interacting with the HEX smart contract), whilst the consensus code and staking mechanism is contained in the HEX smart contract.
Price Analysis Jan-Dec
On November 19th HEX’s Big Pay Day highlights the strong finish to an exciting yearlong launch phase, crediting active stakes with 183 Billion HEX worth over $750 Million dollars. The design intention is never a promise, but seeing HEX perform as designed appears indeed very promising: HEX’s price has gone up 92x vs Bitcoin, 79x vs Ethereum, and 115x vs USD. It did all of this in just 129 days. By design, HEX enriches The Staker Class with a highly attractive APY plus additional rewards.
The recent rise in Bitcoin over +200% since the halving in May and then the suggested start of the Altcoin season could have contributed to this price rally and another factor could be due to HEX addresses a larger market than Bitcoin with superior product fit. The United States and China have over $7.2 Trillion in time deposits. This is a 50% larger market than the peer-to-peer currency market Bitcoin was designed to address where printed cash totals about $5 Trillion.
While HEX might be the first coin to ever have two independent security audits, due to apparent gatekeeping practices by the ever-popular CoinMarketCap HEX has yet to be ranked correctly there. In fact, CoinMarketCap has suspiciously pegged HEX at Rank 201 – appearing buried on page 3. This not only makes it extremely difficult for new investors to discover HEX but also calls data reporting practices into question.
2. Theta (THETA) +2267%
Theta (THETA) is a blockchain-powered network purpose-built for video streaming. Launched in March 2019, the Theta mainnet operates as a decentralized network in which users share bandwidth and computing resources on a peer-to-peer (P2P) basis. The project is advised by Steve Chen, co-founder of YouTube, and Justin Kan, co-founder of Twitch.
Price Analysis Jan-Dec
So far the year 2020 the value of THETA has almost grown 9 times from $0.25 AUD in January 2020. Market capitalization has also more than doubled from $150M AUD million at the start of the year to $297M today. This growth has been thanks to the recovery of the crypto markets in general after a sharp decline in 2018. 2019 up to the start of 2020 was the time coins really took off and recorded massive growth rates. Many have claimed that this may have just been due to the hype and perhaps even a bubble. When crypto prices started to decline, some investors thought it was the end of the coin market, but instead, it has remained very stable. This is because crypto has finally been embraced by institutional investors who have the resources to purchase large amounts of crypto.
From the above chart showing the price of THETA over its lifetime, it doesn’t look much different from that of many other coins in the market. Since January 2020, most coins have gained their value and market capitalization as well for various reasons. It would seem that THETA has also returned huge profits in the year 2020 and it should be interesting to see how it performs in 2021.
Reasons why Theta Might Have Gone Up
The recent rise in Bitcoin over +200% since the halving in May and then the suggested start of the Altcoin season could have contributed to this price rally and recently, the developers released the mainnet update and added smart contract functionality. Also, the team announced the upcoming improvements, including the launch of the Theta Wallet Chrome extension and Theta Token Minter functionality that will allow users to create their own tokens on the Theta blockchain.
3. Synthetix (SNX) +1263%
Synthetix is a derivatives liquidity protocol on Ethereum that enables the issuance and trading of synthetic assets. Each synthetic asset (or Synth) is an ERC20 token that tracks the price of an external asset; for example, each USD token tracks the price of the US dollar (and unlike the other synthetic assets, is fixed at 1). A wide variety of Synths exists within Synthetix, including fiat currencies, cryptocurrencies, commodities, and inverse indexes. In principle, the system can support any asset with a clear price and provides on-chain exposure to an unlimited range of real-world assets. The protocol will enable a variety of trading features including binary options, futures, and more.
Price Analysis Jan-Dec
Synthetix is an Australian project, founded in 2016. The creators of the project went further and developed a system of 2 tokens:
Synthetix Network Token is a token that provides liquidity in the system.
Synths is a token whose value is tied to the price of a real asset (fiat, precious metals, company shares).
The Synthetix Network Token prices have gone up from 1.45 AUD to 15.62 AUD in one year. The long-term earning potentials were +233.23% in one year. In June 2020, the price fluctuated from $7.52. AUD to $14.12 AUD in late November 2020. Synthetix price today is $16.62 AUD with a 24-hour trading volume of $362.42 M and a market cap of $1.40 B.
Reasons why SNX Might Have Gone Up
The recent rise in Bitcoin over +200% since the halving in May and then the suggested start of the Altcoin season could have contributed to this price rally and Staking is another feature that is likely attracting users due to its relatively high annualized percentage yield based on the protocol’s cash flow mechanism. Essentially, the fees that occur from trading on Synthetix are collected and distributed pro-rata to SNX stakers.
The combination of a spike in interest in Synthetix from the Coinbase listing and the platform’s overall rise in user activity likely triggered the +100% rally since late November.
4. Ethereum (ETH) +704%
Ethereum is a decentralized open-source blockchain system that features its own cryptocurrency, Ether. ETH works as a platform for numerous other cryptocurrencies, as well as for the execution of decentralized smart contracts.
Ethereum was first described in a 2013 whitepaper by Vitalik Buterin. Buterin, along with other co-founders, secured funding for the project in an online public crowd sale in the summer of 2014 and officially launched the blockchain on July 30, 2015.
Price Analysis Jan-Dec
Ethereum had the eventful year 2020, with a few technical update hiccups and some interesting innovations. The year 2020 saw the emergence of Decentralised Finance (DeFi), almost all of whose projects are based on Ethereum technology.
The community is eagerly awaiting the ETH2 upgrades that will ultimately ensure that the network has the capabilities to become the blockbuster of tomorrow’s innovative financial products
The coin started the year with the price of only $169 AUD on January 1st, 2020. 12 months later, its price went up by nearly 9 times, currently sitting at $1,450 AUD. While the coin is still not even halfway to its own all-time high, it has made significant achievements towards getting there.
Right after the start of the year, ETH participated in a strong rally that took its price from the mentioned level of $169 to $381 AUD. The coin was attempting to reach the $500 AUD mark, getting quite close to it before the rally ended, and a correction hit.
Around July 20, the ETH price managed to break out and skyrocket to its next major resistance at $550 AUD. It reached this level just as the first week of August ended, and it kept trying to break it for months, finally succeeding in the early days of November 2020.
Reasons why Ethereum Might Have Gone Up
The recent rise in Bitcoin over +200% since the halving in May and then the suggested start of the Altcoin season could have contributed to this Ethereum Price rally, It could also be due to the ETH 2.0 upgrade.
Chainlink (LINK) is a decentralized oracle network that aims to connect smart contracts with data from the real world. Chainlink was developed by Sergey Nazarov, with Steve Ellis as the other co-founder. It held an ICO in September 2017, raising $32 million, with a total supply of 1 billion LINK tokens. LINK, the cryptocurrency native to the Chainlink decentralized oracle network, is used to pay node operators.
Price Analysis Jan-Dec
ChainLink saw a significant price movement in January 2020 and ended in February. During this period, the coin managed to grow from $2.74 AUD to $5.60 AUD in the short time frame. In March, it crucially fell back to its previous price point of $2.89 AUD. In April, it managed to recover, climbing back to $3.55 AUD. Then on July 7, 2020, the LINK price underwent an impressive surge as China’s national blockchain network, the Blockchain Service Network (BSN) was activated with 135 nodes integrated with Chainlink price oracles.
The news saw the LINK price surge from around $6.87 AUD to an all-time high of $9.60 AUD, with gains of +29% percent on the day. Chainlink continued an ascending trendline into mid-August, gaining bullish momentum. Into late September 2020, it saw sudden bearish activity before beginning its climb once again into October.
At the time of writing, ADA is ranked 9th cryptocurrency globally and the current price is $21.04 AUD. According to CoinmarketCap, the cryptocurrency has now broken into the top 10. Before the end of 2020, Chainlink is most likely to gain more against its AUD/BTC pair and touch around $23.04 AUD.
Reasons why LINK Might Have Gone Up
The recent rise in Bitcoin over +200% since the halving in May and then the suggested start of the Altcoin season could have contributed to this massive rise. And some other several things that have made Chainlink grow into what it is currently. One of the factors that made it rise is the number of products offered. People can get crypto loans, make savings, and even earn interest on their Chainlink coin.
Cardano is a proof-of-stake blockchain platform that says its goal is to allow “changemakers, innovators and visionaries” to bring about positive global change. The open-source project also aims to “redistribute power from unaccountable structures to the margins to individuals” — helping to create a society that is more secure, transparent, and fair.
Price Analysis Jan-Dec
Cardano performed well at the beginning of the year, rising to $0.0927 AUD by 13 February. ADA may have continued to grow, but the entire crypto market has suffered, and Cardano fell as low as $0.0457 AUD by 13 March. After testing all-time lows, the crypto coin’s price rebounded to as high as $0.2543 AUD on 27 July, showing a seven-fold increase in price since the March drop. Currently, Cardano looks bullish, consolidating above the $0.3107 AUD support level and trading at $0.3845 AUD per coin.
The Cardano cryptocurrency looks very promising, so the number of investors willing to invest in ADA is gradually rising. The forthcoming October update of the voting and governance protocol may lead to a price increase.
Reasons why Cardano Might Have Gone Up
The recent rise in Bitcoin over +200% since the halving in May and then the suggested start of the Altcoin season could have contributed to this Ethereum Price rally, It could also be due to this year that has been most significant for the Shelley hard fork 10, beginning Cardano’s transition from a federated blockchain to a decentralized and robust network of independent stake pools. Shelley was also the first time that IOHK’s Hard Fork Combinator 1 was deployed, enabling the seamless transition from Byron to Shelley.
Shelley saw the arrival of staking and delegation, representing the first time that all ada holders could participate in consensus on the network, and earn staking rewards for their contribution.
7. Stellar (XLM) +506%
Stellar is an open network that allows money to be moved and stored. When it was released in July 2014, one of its goals was boosting financial inclusion by reaching the world’s unbanked — but soon afterward, its priorities shifted to helping financial firms connect with one another through blockchain technology. The network’s native token, lumens, serves as a bridge that makes it less expensive to trade assets across borders. All of this aims to challenge existing payment providers, who often charge high fees for a similar service.
Price Analysis Jan-Dec
The positive sentiments of being an efficient blockchain payment network have moved swiftly from XRP to XLM because of Stellar’s recent partnership with the Ukraine government to digitize their national fiat currency. Stellar has upgraded its platform from Protocol 13 to Protocol 15 on November 23rd and the upgrade has improved sponsored reserves and claimable balances on the platform.
With a market cap of $10,728,525,470 AUD and a circulating supply of 20,853,997,348 XLM, Stellar has taken a strong position in the list of top-20 cryptocurrencies, occupying 9th place at the moment of writing. Stellar’s closest rivals are Ethereum, TRON, and Cardano.
By the end of October 2020, the cryptocurrency was trading at around $0.1475 AUD, which is -30% lower than the XLM 52-week high of $0.1785 AUD from August 17, and +192% higher than the 52-week low of $0.0587 AUD from March 12, 2020.
Reasons why XLM Might Have Gone Up
The recent rise in Bitcoin over +200% since the halving in May and then the suggested start of the Altcoin season could have contributed to this price rally and some other factors include on April 11th, 2020, the Stellar Lumens Foundation released its report for Q1 2020, showing excellent ecosystem growth. What’s more, the total usage and transaction volumes had increased in comparison to Q4 of 2019. Interestingly enough, though, the total number of registered Stellar accounts decreased by 1.79% between Q4 2019 and Q1 2020. When you take the 8% increase of trading volume into account, this means that the increased activity was due to existing users. Stellar’s daily operations also managed to increase by an incredible +113% from Q1 2020 to Q3 2020.
VeChain is the world’s leading blockchain platform offering Blockchain-as-a-Service to enterprises for products and information. By leveraging on blockchain technology, VeChain strives to build a trust-free and distributed business ecosystem, which is self-circulating and scalable.
Price Analysis Jan-Dec
VeChain was long considered one of the hottest cryptocurrencies. Since 2015 the project exists, which wants to score, especially with actual applications and partnerships. After positive news and new announcements made the round in the last weeks, it is time for a small VeChain analysis.
The project, therefore, remained under the radar for a long time. From August 2018 to March 2020, short-term successes and newly established partnerships were able to give the coin a slight boost. However, the big break from the negative trend failed to materialize for a long time.
In March of this year came then the break-in with all cryptocurrencies. All the same, whether Bitcoin, Ethereum, or evenly VeChain (VET): High two-digit exchange losses shift the market into a deep red. VET course: Over +400% growth since March 2020. After it came with nearly all cryptocurrencies to substantial corrections, many investors used the opportunity to buy undervalued Coins. The VeChain share price recovered enormously well in the period from March to June. In June, the VET price was around 0.01457 AUD, while in March, it was just 0.0089 AUD.
In the period from June to July, VET rose again. In August this year, VeChain reached an annual and, at the same time, an all-time high with a price of 0.045 AUD.
Reasons why VeChain Might Have Gone Up
The recent rise in Bitcoin over +200% since the halving in May and then the suggested start of the Altcoin season could have contributed to this price rally and also in a press release, the VeChain Foundation has announced its participation in the RMIT Blockchain Innovation Hub. Created by the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), the initiative is part of an interdisciplinary team of researchers from renowned entities.
9. Bitcoin (BTC) +338%
Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer online currency, meaning that all transactions happen directly between equal, independent network participants, without the need for any intermediary to permit or facilitate them. Bitcoin was created, according to Nakamoto’s own words, to allow “online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution.”
Price Analysis Jan-Dec
At the start of the year, bitcoin was still considered a fringe investment, disparaged by the likes of the billionaire investor Warren Buffett as having “no value.” By the end of the year, however, bitcoin has nearly quadrupled in value, reaching an all-time high above $46,560.57 AUD and thrusting itself into the center of conversations among big investors and Wall Street firms.
Some bitcoin proponents saw the success of the cryptocurrency and its underlying blockchain network as validation of a landmark technology that might forever change finance.
At the time of writing, BTC is ranked 1st cryptocurrency globally and the current price is $44,736 AUD. Bitcoin started its rally from Jan 2020 with $12,754 AUD price levels and dropped again in March around $8654 AUD.
As May arrived, the Bitcoin network’s upcoming “halving” seemed like an afterthought compared with the steep economic toll of the coronavirus.
As of early October, bitcoin prices were trading around $16,800 AUD, up +50% on the year. It was already an impressive gain, especially during a year when the global economy had suffered its worst contraction since the Great Depression nearly a century early. U.S. stocks were up 4%.
Reasons why Bitcoin Might Have Gone Up
The recent rise in Bitcoin over +200% since the halving in May was the major reason behind this massive rally in Bitcoin.
Halvings will keep occurring every four years until the supply cap of 21 million bitcoin has been reached,” the analysts wrote. This means we can project well into the future, and have clarity about what Bitcoin’s inflation rate will look like one, five, or 10 years from now.
10. Litecoin (LTC) +261%
Litecoin is a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency created by Charlie Lee, a former Google employee, in 2011. The cryptocurrency was created based on the Bitcoin protocol, but it differs in terms of the hashing algorithm used, hard cap, block transaction times, and a few other factors. Litecoin was released via an open-source client on GitHub on Oct. 7, 2011, and the Litecoin Network went live five days later on Oct. 13, 2011.
Price Analysis Jan-Dec
Although Litecoin has been around since 2011, an ‘official’ Litecoin price history begins in early 2013 when CoinMarketCap went live. Litecoin spiked from a price of around $3 AUD to $40 AUD during the first crypto market bull run in late 2013. After dropping back down to the $3 AUD – $5 AUD range, it hit an all-time high of nearly $550 AUD during the 2017-2018 bull run, a 100x rally.
Litecoin has been moving sideways since the March 2020 flash crash, hovering at a price between $120 AUD to $190 AUD and currently sitting around $206 AUD. Support appears to be around the $130 AUD -$170 AUD range and it appears that the sideways trend will continue. Trading volume for Litecoin has been increasing gradually since December however, which may be indicative of another move to a $250 AUD price.
Currently, Litecoin (LTC) is trading at $206.58 AUD with LTC price +6.03% up today. The market cap of Litecoin is $13,876,355,385 AUD with 66,245,618 LTC circulating currently. The 24-hour price movement chart indicates that $10,774,415,054 worth of LTC was trading.
Reasons Why Litecoin Might Have Gone Up
The recent rise in Bitcoin over +200% since the halving in May and then the suggested start of the Altcoin season could have contributed to this Ethereum Price rally, It could also be due to the Litecoin’s halving – a pre-programmed reduction in the block reward LTC miners receive – caused the LTC price to skyrocket, reaching over +200% returns before it began to correct.
Where to Buy or Trade Altcoins?
These 10 Altcoins have the highest liquidity on Binance Exchange so that would help for trading on USDT or BTC pairs. However, if you’re just looking at buying some quick and hodling then Swyftx Exchange is a popular choice in Australia.
The overall cryptocurrency market capitalization has reached one trillion US dollars for the first time in history, according to data from the leading crypto statistics site Coinmarketcap.com.
Major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) have seen exponential gains over the past few months, both rising by over 300% since November. Some smaller cap crypto assets and digital tokens like Chainlink (LINK), Cardano (ADA), and Polkadot (DOT) have enjoyed similar price rallies.
Bitcoin’s market valuation recently catapulted to $650 billion, overtaking major US investment firm Berkshire Hathaway, with a $533 billion market cap. Berkshire Hathaway was acquired and reformed in the 70s by iconic investor Warren Buffet, who remains its chairman and CEO to this day. Buffett has historically been very vocal about his dislike of cryptocurrencies, once famously calling Bitcoin “rat poison squared”.
Despite Bitcoin being the best performing asset of the past decade by a large degree, Buffett continues to discount its worth, insisting that it has no value and is purely speculative. However, several major tech firms and financial institutions disagree, such as 170-year-old Mass Mutual which recently bought up $100 million worth of Bitcoin. A small amount compared to the world’s largest digital currency asset manager, Grayscale, with over $20 billion invested in crypto assets.
Image from Howmuch.net
Criticism
Naturally, the extreme gains mean the cryptocurrency market has once again come under fire from critics who believe that asset prices are being manipulated. As with the previous 2017 rally, many critics believe that USDT tokens printed by stablecoin company Tether are being used to artificially prop up the cryptocurrency market – much like the US Federal Reserve props up traditional stock markets with seemingly endless USD issuance.
The concerns are not without merit, especially considering Tether’s continued reluctance to prove that it’s USDT tokens are fully backed by genuine dollar reserves. Tether has been minting millions of dollars in USDT tokens lately, presumably to meet the demand of consumers cashing out their Bitcoin profits or buying USDT as a digital onramp to the crypto world. Without clear and transparent auditing of this issuance, it’s fair to say the situation has the potential for abuse and manipulation.
One argument that challenges this theory is PlanB’s Bitcoin stock-to-flow model, which has accurately tracked the price movements of the BTC/USD trading pair over several years. The model reveals how the price of Bitcoin closely follows a set pattern dictated not by buyers or sellers but rather scarcity created by the algorithm which halves the BTC mining reward every 210,000 blocks. Price movements from the very first Bitcoin halving in late 2012 – long before Tether started printing in 2015 – correlate with Plan B’s stock-to-flow model. This suggests that the current price rally and the one following the previous 2016 halving are simply a result of Bitcoin’s coding rather than any external manipulation.
Despite the majority of news focusing on market leader Bitcoin, Ethereum had a much better year than the king of crypto, providing a 600% return-on-investment (ROI) during 2020.
After a massive week-long rally that saw Ethereum double in price and break through the significant $1,000 price point, Australian market analyst Kyle Rodda told news.com.au that “2021 should be a good year” for the cryptocurrency.
However, the sudden gains faced severe resistance around the US$1,200 mark, getting knocked back down to US$892 before recovering to current levels. ETH is now back up above $1,100, with Bitcoin up 16% after suffering 13% losses and dumping almost US$4,000 in one hour on Monday.
The movements could indicate the start of the ever-elusive alt-season that crypto altcoin investors have been patiently waiting for since the current bull market started last year. As popular Crypto Twitter voice GalaxyBTC pointed out:
“This $BTC correction was all we needed to finally ignite the #altseason.”
As a result of the huge gains, Ethereum gas fees are skyrocketing again, rendering the network inefficient for the massive decentralized finance (DeFi) market that relies largely on Ethereum’s ERC20 protocol to function.
Happy Birthday Bitcoin!
The cryptocurrency market has been on a tear recently, with leading asset Bitcoin (BTC) smashing records and hitting new highs almost daily. The price movements mimic the 2017 rally that saw Bitcoin rise from a new all-time high (ATH) of around $1,000 to almost $20,000 per coin in less than a year. Should the same scenario play out this time around, Bitcoin could reach $400,000 per coin before the end of 2021.
Yesterday, on January 3, 2021, Bitcoin celebrated its 12th birthday with huge gains that took it to a new ATH above AUD$40,000. The mysterious and pseudonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, mined the very first Bitcoin block (the genesis block) on January 3, 2009, forever encoding in history a news headline from the day: “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.”
Many believe the meaning of the encoded headline is to reiterate Bitcoin’s intention as an autonomous and incorruptible replacement for badly managed government-issued money.
Institutional investment continues aggressively
Speaking to Forbes yesterday, US-based blockchain developer James Reilly from decentralized hosting platform Ether-1 said “BTC is becoming more mainstream.” The level of institutional interest today is much larger than during the 2017 rally, when cryptocurrencies were largely considered a risky, unreliable investment.
With multinational investment firms like Grayscale and tech giants Paypal pouring money and research into the crypto market, this new rally could unfold in a unique fashion. While adoption and investment are typically a positive sign for an asset class, in the case of cryptocurrency, it’s also attracted intense regulatory scrutiny. The two opposing forces of regulation and adoption will need to find a suitable balance if the crypto market hopes to mature in a sustainable way.
These are the coins i really like the look of in 2021. This is not financial or trading advice, I’m just sharing some information and thoughts on these projects that look interesting this year.
1. Bitcoin (BTC)
Bitcoin is the first successful internet money based on peer-to-peer technology; whereby no central bank or authority is involved in the transaction and production of the Bitcoin currency.
The Price of BTC in 2020 went from US $7,000 to now $33,000 – Source: Coinmarketcap.com
The end of 2020 saw the start of the institutional money flowing into BTC with the Bitcoin marketcap rising from US $130 Billion to over US $500 Billion. With big players such as Paypal, Square Inc, MicroStrategy Inc and other institutions adding thousands of BTC to their holdings.
Ethereum is a decentralized open-source blockchain system that features its own cryptocurrency, Ether. ETH works as a platform for numerous other cryptocurrencies, as well as for the execution of decentralized smart contracts.
The Price of ETH in 2020 went from US $129 to now $1,090 – Source: Coinmarketcap.com
The recent developments of the ETH launchpad and Ethereum 2.0has certainly sparked the interest in Ethereum.
In 2020 we also saw the emergence of DeFi and it’s marketcap surpassing US $10 Billion which looks like a very interesting market with lots of exciting developments for 2021.
3. Chainlink (LINK)
Chainlink is a decentralized oracle network which aims to connect smart contracts with data from the real world.
The Price of LINK in 2020 went from US $2 to now $14 – Source: Coinmarketcap.com
Chainlink provides is the missing link (pun intended) between the real world data and the virtual blockchain data. The smart contracts provided by other blockchains such as Ethereum will require real world data to execute. This is where Chainlink comes in to provide verifiable data to those networks through real world APIs.
Looking to 2021 as Chainlink continues to add to its growing number of partnerships and more blockchains to start to use its services and DeFi projects to use Chainlink’s decentralized oracle network.
4. Stellar (XLM)
Stellar is an open network that allows money to be moved and stored. When it was released in July 2014, one of its goals was boosting financial inclusion by reaching the world’s unbanked — but soon afterwards, its priorities shifted to helping financial firms connect with one another through blockchain technology.
The Price of XLM in 2020 went from US $0.04 to now $0.19 – Source: Coinmarketcap.com
Stellar was founded in the USA where some of the Ripple founders left and cloned the codebase and rewrote it. I’m quite impressed with the coding activity of Stellar seen on Github which if it continues, they should have a great 2021. Also looking forward to seeing what the partnership with IBM and blockchain cross-border payments can produce and possible banks launching stablecoins on the network.
5. OMG Network (OMG)
OMG Network, formerly known as OmiseGo, is a non-custodial, layer-2 scaling solution built for the Ethereum blockchain. As an Ethereum scaling solution, OMG Network is designed to allow users to transfer ETH and ERC20 tokens significantly faster and cheaper than when transacting directly on the Ethereum network.
The Price of OMG in 2020 went from US $0.6 to now $3.30 – Source: Coinmarketcap.com
Founded in Thailand in 2017, OMG is covering areas such as payments, loyalty points and banking/finance.
2021 could see OMG switch to Proof of Stake (POS) and working with ETH to scale transactions lowering transaction fees through the Plasma Network.
Closing Remarks
Obviously there are thousands of cryptos and projects that are trying to solve complex problems and improve all areas of our industries. The cryptocurrencies and tokens are starting to enter mainstream news now and i’m sure 2021 will see a lot more exposure for these awesome projects.
The Price of BTC in 2020 went from US $7,000 to now $33,000 The Price of ETH in 2020 went from US $129 to now $1,090 The Price of LINK in 2020 went from US $2 to now $14 The Price of XLM in 2020 went from US $0.04 to now $0.19 The Price of OMG in 2020 went from US $0.6 to now $3.30
I wonder how these will perform in 2021… Check back next year for an update!
Apart from its volatility, one other known problem when using cryptocurrency for payments is that the blockchain network fees can vary largely from day to day.
To help diagnose the fees we transferred $100 AUD to BTC, LTC, ETH and USDC and sent them to an external wallet to see the fees charged by the exchange platform and the blockchain network fees. Note: all fees shown as at 31/12/2020and sent using CoinJar to an external walleton chain.
AUD to BTC to External BTC Address
$100 AUD (CoinJar cash account)
Converted to 0.00262679 BTC (A$98.96). 1% conversion fee.
Sent to an external BTC address
Received 0.00220921 BTC (A$82.90)
Network fee: 0.00041758 BTC (A$15.67)
Total fees: A$17.10 (17.1%)
AUD to LTC to to External LTC Address
$100 AUD (CoinJar cash account)
Converted to 0.6 LTC ($98.96). 1% conversion fee.
Sent to an external LTC address
Received 0.6 LTC (A$98.96)
Network fee 0.00000373 LTC (A$0.00062)
Total fees: A$1.04 (1.04%)
AUD to ETH to to External ETH Address
$100 AUD (CoinJar cash account)
Converted to 0.1 ETH (A$98.96). 1% conversion fee.
Sent to an external ETH address.
Received 0.09131 ETH (A$89.53).
Network fee: 0.00869 ETH (A$9.43)
Total fees: A$10.47 (10.47%)
AUD to USDC to External USDC Address
$100 AUD (CoinJar cash account)
Converted to 75.63 USDC (A$98.96). 1% conversion fee.
Sent to an external USDC address.
Received 70 USDC (A$92.00)
Network fee: 4.928023 USDC (A$6.42)
Total fees: A$8.00 (8%)
Conclusion
Here is a comparison of network fees for each crypto we tested (when sending approximately A$100 worth).
Coin
Approximate Network Fee
BTC
15.83%
LTC
0.0001%
ETH
9.53%
USDC
6.49%
Comparison of network fees for cryptocurrencies
Litecoin (LTC) has by far the cheapest fees (almost non-existent) compared to BTC, ETH and USDC. As we know, the BTC network fee doesn’t vary based on the amount, but rather on the network conditions at the time of transfer. Therefore, sending larger amounts would make the fees more easily acceptable.
A recent report shows what cryptocurrencies Australians are holding in their portfolios. Over 1,000 Australians were interviewed, interesting revealed that the northern territory is the largest holder of digital assets compared to the other states.
What Coins Are Aussies Hodling?
Not surprisingly, the most popular asset held is Bitcoin (BTC). One surprise though was although Ethereum (ETH) is the second most popular crypto by market cap, more Australians are holding Ripple (XRP).
Bitcoin: 74%.
XRP (Ripple): 28%
Ethereum: 27%.
Bitcoin Cash: 17%
Litecoin: 15%
Chainlink: 5.2%
Others 8.5%
While these are currently the most popular in the average Aussie portfolio, other tokens amounted to a total of 8.5%. Interestingly, the crypto held by Australians mostly resembled the actual order by market cap, similar to that of a “crypto index”.
Millennials Are Making The Most Out Of Crypto
The report also suggests, adults between the ages of 25 and 45 consider cryptocurrencies as savings for their future. At least 18 % of Australians own some token, and 2 out of 5 consider it a good investment.
About 42.7% of those interviewed said they increased their capital by making successful investments in the cryptocurrency market. In contrast, only 20% have lost money. Last year, only 35% of those surveyed increased their wealth.
Cryptocurrencies in Australia are more popular among the youth. However, Australians who have increased their wealth the most are adults between 45 to 50 years old.
From: Independent Reserve
Australians Are More Positive About Crypto in 2020
Above all, the survey has reflected a more positive attitude towards digital assets in Australia for 2020. Bitcoin has gained more attention in these last few months, breaking all time highs. This marks a milestone in the history of BTC — which could attract more people looking for more diversity in their financial investment portfolios.
