cryptopotato.com
At the time of writing, Ethereum is the top-performing crypto asset in the top fifty by market capitalization. Adding 13% on the day, $ETH has surged from $1,380 to a new all-time high of $1,560 according to Tradingview.com.
The move has given the asset a 15% increase over the past seven days and it has over doubled in price since the beginning of this year. Investor Mike Novogratz hinted at an $ETH price of $2,600 if the bullish momentum continues.
Ethereum Strengthens All Round
Following Bitcoin’s ATH on January 8, it was only a matter of time before Ethereum caught up with its own. People say that history often rhymes with crypto markets which are pattern-based. Back in 2017, the gap between the two assets hitting their peak prices was 27 days, fast forward three years and that gap is an uncannily similar 27 days.
The $ETH price peak has had a wider effect on the Ethereum ecosystem as observed by industry expert Anthony Sassano.
There is now $4.5 billion worth of $ETH locked in the eth2 deposit contract.
— Anthony Sassano | sassal.eth 🏴 (@sassal0x) February 3, 2021
With 2.9 million $ETH locked up on the Beacon Chain contract, its value is now a whopping $4.5 billion. This is inaccessible for at least another year where it sits currently earning 9.3% per year in $ETH. Add to that the fact that prices for the asset have increased by 160% since $ETH 2.0 was launched and it becomes a really good investment for early stakers.
In the DeFi sector, there is $11.5 billion in $ETH locked up according to Defipulse.com which reports the number of tokens as 7.4 million. There are 14.3 million $ETH locked away and earning which equates to 12.5% of the entire supply.
One unfortunate side effect of the Ethereum price peak is another surge in gas prices. According to bitinfocharts.com, the average transaction cost has skyrocketed to just below $16 which makes smaller transactions on the network economically unfeasible.
Other Big Movers in Crypto
Ethereum is one of the top-performing assets at the time of press, however, there are a couple of others that have made big gains over the past 24 hours.
Bitcoin has added 8.4% on the day to top $36,600 as it tries to reclaim Friday’s high of $38,400. Polkadot and Cardano are also having a good day with increases of 7 and 8 percent respectively while Litecoin is on a tear with a massive pump of 12% taking LTC t0 $153.