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.