The major Ethereum upgrade, codenamed as London, went live earlier today, helping the record price of Ethereum rise 20% over the past week and sending bitcoin back more of $ 40,000.
The surge in the price of ethereum, pushing ether tokens towards $ 3,000, pushed the combined crypto market up to nearly $ 1.7 trillion, from a recent low of $ 1.2 trillion. dollars in July (subscribe now to Forbes’ CryptoAsset & Blockchain Advisor and discover crypto blockbusters ready to earn 1000%).
As the Ethereum rally accelerates, leaving the price of bitcoin in the dust, some in the crypto industry are predicting that Ethereum could overtake bitcoin as the world’s largest cryptocurrency by value.
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Ethereum, the second largest cryptocurrency after bitcoin, has undergone a long-awaited upgrade … [+]
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“Ethereum could turn bitcoin into the world’s number one cryptocurrency,” said Tim Sabanov, chief technology officer of Scotland-based bitcoin and crypto platform Zumo, in comments emailed ahead of the release. expected level of Ethereum.
The Ethereum upgrade in London aims to help the blockchain scale and make rising transaction fees more manageable. The upgrade is part of Ethereum’s long-awaited move from the energy-intensive proof-of-work model used by Bitcoin to proof-of-stake – allowing users to generate new Ether tokens through their existing holdings – and known as Ethereum 2.0. The entire upgrade is not expected to be fully completed until 2022.
âWhat Ethereum has done is look at something that already exists – bitcoin – and improve it,â Sabanov said. “It has an extremely vibrant developer community and that means the ecosystem is growing at an astonishing rate.”
Ethereum bulls indicate that the network has recently outperformed bitcoin in a number of closely watched metrics and its price performance against bitcoin over the past year as a rationale for their predictions. Ethereum has climbed 600% in the past 12 months, compared to Bitcoin’s 250% increase.
âThe crypto giant recently overtook bitcoin in the total number of active daily addresses, and that momentum shows no signs of slowing down as the network continues to fuel major DeFi and NFT trends,â Sabanov added.
Decentralized Finance (DeFi), using crypto technology to reinvent traditional financial products like loans and insurance without the need for banks, and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), unique digital crypto tokens linked to online media, are both have grown into multi-billion dollar markets over the past two years. Almost all DeFi and NFT funds are currently based and traded on the Ethereum blockchain.
Upgrading Ethereum will also see some Ethereum tokens destroyed or “burned”, which will limit the arrival of new tokens on the market and, in theory, make the tokens more scarce.
Earlier this week, Dan Morehead, founder of the $ 2.8 billion investment fund Pantera Capital, reportedly predicted that Ethereum would eventually topple bitcoin, as he expected the price of bitcoin to hit. $ 700,000 per bitcoin in just ten years.
“You will see a transition of people who want to store wealth, doing so in ether rather than just bitcoin,” Morehead told the Reuters Global Markets Forum on Monday, it was reported by Co-telegraph.
In June, the chief investment officer of the $ 100 million digital asset investment manager Two Prime, Nathan Cox, predicted that Ethereum would eventually “flip” bitcoin.
âIn the long, long, multi-year timeline, yes, Ethereum will reverse bitcoin,â said Nathan Cox of Two Prime. “This is just starting to be understood by second-rate adopters. The utility of Ethereum alone will surpass all else.”
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Ethereum’s price has climbed 600% over the past year, capitalizing on the DeFi and NFT craze that both are using … [+]
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Earlier this year, longtime cryptocurrency bull Mike Novogratz, managing director of crypto investor Galaxy Digital, also predicted that Ethereum could one day become the “biggest cryptocurrency.”
Meanwhile, many players in the cryptocurrency space have expressed support for the Ethereum upgrade, claiming that it will be of great benefit to the crypto industry and market.
âFor the many cryptocurrencies and related DeFi applications, this is a big boost for better efficiency, so good for the entire crypto ecosystem,â said Diogo Monica, co-founder. and chairman of crypto bank Anchorage Digital, via email.
âWe are convinced that [ethereum’s] The network upgrade will successfully overhaul the market for network transaction fees and other parameters such as gas refunds, âsaid Paolo Ardoino, chief technology officer at both the crypto exchange Bitfinex and to stablecoin issuer Tether Limited, in comments sent via email. positive impact on the use of DeFi on Ethereum and help the network realize its enormous potential. “