Ethereum Price Breaks $500 Barrier for First Time Since July 2018

The second-largest digital asset by market capitalization Ethereum has surpassed the $500 level for the first time since July 2018. The price of Ethereum (ETH) was around $502.64 at the time of writing having jumped approximately 6.4% in the past 24 hours according to the metrics provided by CoinGecko.

The Ethereum ecosystem is a major project that holds the success of most crypto projects. Particularly in the decentralized finance (DeFi) industry that has experienced a significant demand in the past few months. Although not with notable challenges, the booming DeFi industry has over $20 billion in market capitalization thus guaranteeing the future prospects of the Ethereum ecosystem.

Ethereum (ETH) Price Rally

Apparently, Ethereum price breaking above the $500 level is a confirmation of the long-awaited bull rally. Particularly with Bitcoin that is around 10% shy of its all-time high of $20k, although, Ethereum is 65% shy of its all-time high, $1448.18. According to CoinGecko data analysis, Ethereum has added approximately 36.4% in the last 30 days. In addition, the asset has jumped 20.7% in the past two weeks through Thursday and managed to add 8.6% in value over the past seven days.

Ethereum has a market capitalization of $56,715,317,189 with its past 24 hour trading volume at $13,533,707,018 according to CoinGecko. Notably, its trading volume in the last 24 hours is almost the same as the total market capitalization of XRP. The number of Ethereum in circulating supply stands at 113,502,651 with an infinite market supply. However, with the asset globally traded thus reciprocating to high demand, its value is poised to skyrocket perhaps in a similar version as Bitcoin.

The Bigger Picture

Ethereum developers are working round the clock to meet the deadlines outlined for the phase 0 of Eth 2.0 to be launched. Several testnets have taken place giving varying outcomes although some are yet to be completed.

The Madella mainnet which has been running for the past few months has had issues with the number of validators. Previously, Ben Edgington, the lead product owner at ConsenSys Quorum Protocol Engineering advising on Ethereum 2.0 development across the ConsenSys organization, told the media outlet Cointelegraph that the validator number may vary at the end of the testnet.

“I expect that the pace of deposits will accelerate sharply as the cut-off date nears. There’s little benefit in staking early, so I think people are just taking their time. Whether there will be enough to push us over the threshold in time is hard to judge, but I remain optimistic. If there is a delay to genesis, I expect it to be short,” he said.