DeFi Gives Ethereum (ETH) Runway to New Highs
Ethereum (ETH) is gaining ground again, with a rapid spike above $3,500. The highly active trading suggests ETH may be preparing for a higher price range, on the back of the growing DeFi network of tokens, projects and oracle platforms.
ETH extended its mid-week rally, trading at $3,516.14, adding more than 8.74% in the past day. While BTC prices moved slower above $47,300, the Ethereum ecosystem had a field day, with significant growth of DeFi tokens.
Can ETH Go to $20K
The most recent rally arrived with suggestions of five-digit valuations possible for ETH. The most dramatic predictions envision ETH prices at $20K, based on staking, DeFi vaults and trading, as well as the growing NFT collectible market.
ETH is also back to 0.073 BTC, despite expectations only a few months ago the asset would keep sliding against the leading coin. Trading activity for ETH now exceeds $29B per day, and is close to the baseline level in the past year.
ETH Burn Accelerates
One of the factors for greater ETH demand is the new fee schedule. With higher gas fees, especially for DeFi trades and NFT minting, each transaction destroys a fraction of the ETH supply.
Additionally, the ETH 2.0 smart contract keeps soaking up coins. In the past few weeks, the supply locked jumped from around 6.7M ETH to above 7.3M ETH with a tendency to keep growing.
ETH creation is also somewhat slower, with around 13,400 ETH generated each day. At the same time, the DeFi space locks in more than $80B in value, in ETH collateral in addition to token-based collaterals.
From the launch of the London hard fork on August 5, the fee burn contract has destroyed 156,198 ETH, while issuing a net 205,632 ETH from residual mining.
NFT Still Chooses Ethereum
The problem of buying crypto collectibles continues due to relatively high fees. However, projects keep choosing ETH as their carrying currency, with expectation that the shift to ETH 2.0 will decrease costs.
Additionally, ETH-based collections are also some of the most successful, driving both the primary and secondary market of NFT collectibles.
DeFi Tokens Market Cap Boosted
Along with the growth of ETH prices, the collection of top DeFi tokens keeps adding to its market capitalization.
In the past few weeks, the total market cap of DeFi platforms exceeded $137B, up from a recent low under $80B. Uniswap (UNI), Terra (LUNA) and ChainLink (LINK) stay at the lead with market cap above $10B.
DeFi Tokens Outperform the Market
While BTC prices are seeking direction, the native tokens of DeFi projects keep gaining attention and achieve dramatic moves.
UNI is once again above $30 after a 10% gain in the past 24 hours. Aave (AAVE) is up to $407.05, with more than 9% gained in the past day. Maker (MKR) has not made any dramatic moves, but remains on track to 100% gains since the dip on July 25.
When is ETH 2.0 Coming
Despite the hype and excitement, there is no clear date when the Ethereum network will shift to ETH 2.0.
For now, expectations for the launch envision early 2022 as an option to make the biggest shift of the Ethereum network.
The promise of ETH 2.0 has been thrown around since 2017, when the first effects of high gas fees were felt. Over the years, multiple projects arose that solved some of the issues of Ethereum. However, value did not shift to those projects, and ERC-20 tokens remain the most numerous and versatile digital asset.
Now, ETH 2.0 faces the challenge of replicating the entire ecosystem and its history in another form, without breaking the projects dependent on Ethereum.
ETH Miners Still Going Strong
ETH is becoming more valuable, and miners are not giving up on the network. Even if ETH 2.0 does away with mining, the next months will be a chance to acquire more tokens and possibly stake them for future gains.
Mining set a series of new peaks in the past month alone, overcoming a temporary slump in July. The miners also did not split off into a new chain, which was envisioned as a worst-case scenario for the London hard fork.
Another problem with Ethereum is the presence of nodes running an outdated version of the Geth software. Most miners are updated to the correct version, but nodes may still exist that can cause problematic transactions between wallets, exchanges and DeFi hubs.
More than 71% of all Ethereum nodes rely on the Geth software. However, the node performance is not a true hard fork for Ethereum, as the main mined blockchain has preserved the consensus of miners and node operators.
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