Amid shifting market sentiments, bitcoin’s market activity on Feb. 26, 2024, demonstrates both consolidation and fluctuation. Within the intraday, bitcoin’s value oscillated between ,926 and ,917, highlighting the persistent unpredictability of the crypto economy while bitcoin’s market capitalization remains over the trillion-dollar mark. Bitcoin Bitcoin’s (BTC) 24-hour trading volume hit .57 billion, indicating a decrease […]
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Five Key Numbers Paint an Optimistic Picture For Ethereum in Q3 2020
Ethereum has had a solid year so far, backed by an apparent increase in user activity and demand for ETH. Five crucial metrics portray the optimistic medium-term outlook on the dominant smart contracts blockchain network.
The five metrics are an increase in Truffle Suite downloads, Ethereum DApps, daily transactions, decentralized finance (DeFi), and blockchain initiatives.
Highly optimistic numbers show rapid Ethereum growth
According to ConsenSys, the Ethereum ecosystem achieved the following numbers in June:
- 3.5 million in Truffle Suite downloads
- 27 new Ethereum decentralized applications (DApps)
- 1.1 million daily transaction peak in June
- .9 billion in DeFi
- 700 blockchain initiatives
DeFi was arguably the primary catalyst that fueled the growth of Ethereum in recent months.
Relatively new DeFi protocols and their native cryptocurrencies like Compound saw explosive demand upon their launch.
The frenzy around DeFi likely led to higher user activity on the blockchain network overall. Consequently, it pushed transactions on the Ethereum network and the number of developers using Ethereum through Truffle to increase.
The DeFi market eventually surpassed billion in total value locked, as investors increasingly shifted to new DeFi platforms.
DeFi platforms and cryptocurrencies on Ethereum. Source: ConsenSys
Atop of DeFi-related metrics, the general optimism towards Ethereum also stems from the imminent release of ETH 2.0.
The Ethereum developer community anticipates ETH 2.0 to launch by the year’s end, which would allow Ethereum staking.
The term staking refers to users processing information on the blockchain network, rather than miners, holding Ethereum.
In the case of Ethereum 2.0, users need to stake 32 ETH to earn rewards under the 2.0 system as validators. But, holders carrying less than the specified amount can still participate in staking through pools.
The BitMEX research team explained:
“In the Eth2 specification, each staking agent requires 32 ETH. If more than 32 ETH are sent to the contract, then the staker does not receive benefits from these additional coins and if less than 32 ETH are sent, the staker will not activate. Therefore to transfer ETH into Eth2, one should do it in batches of 32 coins. Each batch of 32 ETH can be a separate staking agent.”
The price of Ethereum rises possibly in anticipation of ETH 2.0. Source: TradingView.com
Interesting network statistics
The ConsenSys “Ethereum by the Numbers–June 2020” blog post identified additional statistics that portray user activity on the Ethereum blockchain network.
It found 8,035 live mainnet nodes globally with 584 new nodes and 103 million unique addresses.
With the addition of 27 new DApps, the Ethereum blockchain network now has nearly 2,900 DApps on the network.
Enterprise-grade blockchain tools have also seen a gradual rise in demand over the past several months.
Total installations of Microsoft’s Blockchain Development Kit for Ethereum hit 12,000, as lifetime Truffle downloads surpassed 3,500,000.
Based on various statistics, the explosive growth of DeFi and high anticipation towards ETH 2.0 are seemingly driving high user activity to Ethereum.
Photo from Unsplash
These 3 Factors Paint a Grim Outlook for XRP, Even Amid Crypto Boom
A popular sentiment that has developed over the past few days is that XRP, the third-largest crypto by market capitalization, is poised to explode higher. Top altcoins, after all, have seen strong performances over the past few weeks, with Ethereum, especially, starting to post notable gains against Bitcoin.
Luke Martin, a prominent crypto trader featured on CNN last year, summed up the hype well by posting the four charts seen below. In reference to them, he wrote:
“Major alts have high correlation, with charts often looking identical. Some lead. Some lag. But they trend together forming tops/bottoms ~ same time. EOS & XRP lagging behind up only 5% from the lows.”
These charts would suggest that barring a large sell-off in the crypto market, XRP (and EOS for that matter) is poised to achieve a considerable upside against Bitcoin.
But, not everyone is in agreement with this sentiment, pointing to four technical and fundamental reasons to back an opinion that XRP won’t be subject to the same gains as, say, Ethereum.
XRP On Edge of Price Cliff: Analysts
According to a pseudonymous trader, XRP is currently in a tough position from a technical perspective. The trader noted that the cryptocurrency is trading in a clear descending triangle pattern, a textbook formation that often resolves lower.
Indeed, a descending triangle is what predicting Bitcoin’s drop from the ,000 support in 2018 to the ,150 level, and is also what marked the top in 2019’s bull market. This historical precedent would suggest that while a move below the triangle isn’t imminent, XRP breaking below it would spell disaster for bulls.
The bearish sentiment over XRP’s price outlook extends to the asset’s performance against the U.S. dollar, which is the second point.
Crypto market technician Byzantine General made this sentiment clear when he shared a chart on April 13th, accentuating that XRP is in a harrowing spot from a macro perspective. The chart indicated that the cryptocurrency had seen a double rejection at a key horizontal level, and has since entered a region where there is little historical liquidity.
In reference to the chart, the analyst wrote:
“This is probably one of the scariest charts I’ve ever seen. I wouldn’t want to be bagholding this.”
Ripple Is Offloading Coins Once Again
It isn’t just the bearish charts that have crypto traders worried about XRP’s outlook.
On April 23rd, Twitter account “Whale Alert,” which tracks large cryptocurrency transactions of relevance to industry investors, found that 55,000,000 XRP (valued at more than million) was transferred from the wallets of Ripple to its OTC Distribution wallet.
55,000,000 #XRP (10,712,476 USD) transferred from Ripple to Ripple OTC Distribution wallet
Tx: https://t.co/bvbKM6LUsh
— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) April 23, 2020
Although Ripple vehemently denies that the sale of XRP depresses the price of the cryptocurrency, the sentiment in the market goes that any sale of the altcoin by the company is bearish.
Even if Ripple’s assertion isn’t true, the fact that the market sees otherwise may be enough to press prices lower in the near future.
Photo by Cedric Letsch on Unsplash
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