Coinbase Opens Waitlist for Ethereum 2.0 Staking

Coinbase Opens Waitlist for Ethereum 2.0 Staking

TipRanks

Investors are always searching out the stock market’s best opportunities. One of the go-to places for outsized returns, is the biotech sector. These companies, like investors, are also on a quest; to find medical solutions where needed. When one strikes medical gold, the rewards can be phenomenal for early investors who were quick to recognize the potential. However, where the space offers handsome reward, it is fraught with risk. Should a company fail to deliver the requirements to bring a treatment to market, the implications can be brutal for the stock, and therefore, to investors’ pockets. After the completion of clinical tests, the final hurdle in getting a drug approved is a date with the regulators. PDUFA (Prescription Drug User Fee Act) dates – the deadline of the FDA’s review of new drugs - determine whether a treatment is fit for purpose or not and a yay or nay can act as a major catalyst to send shares either soaring or crashing. With this in mind, we opened the TipRanks database to get the lowdown on three biotech stocks awaiting upcoming PDUFA dates. All are currently Buy-rated, with Street analysts predicting strong gains in the year ahead. Cormedix (CRMD) We’ll start off with Cormedix, a biopharma company specializing in the field of infectious and inflammatory diseases, whose PDUFA date is fast-approaching. Cormedix’ sole focus right now is Defencath, a synthetic broad-spectrum antimicrobial and antifungal drug, and on February 28, the FDA will decide whether it cuts the mustard. The company has been developing the treatment to thwart catheter-related bloodstream infections (“CRBSIs”) in patients with end-stage renal disease receiving hemodialysis via a central venous catheter. Defencath is already on the market in Europe and other regions going by the brand name of Neutrolin. B. Riley analyst Andrew D’Silva thinks the FDA’s recent actions bode well for the drug’s chances of approval. “CRMD was granted priority review for the candidate, which reduced the FDA’s review time of the submission from ~10 months to ~6 months, and the FDA subsequently determined an AdCom meeting was not needed. As a result, we are increasing the probability of success related to an FDA approval from 70% to 85%, which is in line with typical approval rates seen for candidates once an NDA/BLA have been submitted,” D’Silva commented. Taking onto account the candidate’s Phase 3 study results, in which the treatment showed a statistically meaningful drop of 71% in CRBSI in patients undergoing hemodialysis compared to heparin, D’Silva thinks Defencath could save the healthcare system around $1 billion a year. This is without even taking into account the “benefits related to reduced antibiotic use, improved quality of life, reduced mortality, or a willingness-to-pay (WTP) per quality-adjusted life year (QALY) gained.” D’Silva’s calculations lead him to believe Cormedix’ TAM (total addressable market) for hemodialysis is in the region of $1.7 billion. In line with his optimistic approach, D’Silva rates CRMD an Outperform (i.e. Buy) along with a $25 price target. Should his thesis play out, a potential gain of 75% could be in the cards. (To watch D’Silva’s track record, click here) Overall, CRMD shares get a unanimous thumbs up, with 4 Buys backing the stock’s Strong Buy consensus rating. Shares sell for $14.30, and the average price target of $22 suggests an upside potential of ~54% from that level. (See CRMD stock analysis on TipRanks) Kiniksa Pharmaceuticals (KNSA) Next up, we have Kiniksa Pharmaceuticals, and unlike Cormedix, the company has a varied pipeline of drugs in different stage of progress - all focusing on weakening diseases with significant unmet medical need. The upcoming catalyst for Kiniksa is the March 21 PDUFA date for rilonacept, for the treatment of recurrent pericarditis (RP), an agonizing and debilitating autoinflammatory cardiovascular disease. The FDA has granted both orphan drug and breakthrough therapy status for the treatment which showed positive topline results in the Phase 3 study. With roughly 40,000 patients with RP in the U.S. either looking for or undergoing medical treatment, Kiniksa’s focus is on bringing to market a treatment that not only addresses the symptoms of a pericarditis recurrence but also lowers the probability of future recurrences. Among the fans is Wedbush analyst David Nierengarten, who believes the company has the right approach. “We believe the commercial messaging is sound and straightforward: in addition to the impressive top-line efficacy, key secondary endpoints of patient-reported quality-of-life and tapering of background medication support its use,” the 5-star analyst opined. The analyst added, “In all, we see KNSA’s rational commercialization strategy for rilo as encouraging and expect the program to be well received by cardiologists who treat disproportionate numbers of recurrent pericarditis patients and by patients given the rapid onset of convincing benefit.” Based on all of the above, Nierengarten rates KNSA an Outperform (i.e. Buy) along with a $35 price target. This target puts the upside potential at 55%. (To watch Nierengarten’s track record, click here) Other analysts share a similar enthusiasm with Nierengarten when it comes to KNSA. As 3 Buy ratings were assigned in the last three months compared to no Holds or Sells, the consensus is unanimous: the stock is a ‘Strong Buy’. Meanwhile, its $31.67 average price target puts the potential twelve-month gain at ~40%. (See KNSA stock analysis on TipRanks) Aveo Pharmaceuticals (AVEO) Hoping to provide better outcomes for patients, AVEO Pharmaceuticals advances targeted medicines for oncology and other unmet medical needs. The company has various drugs in development, but the focus right now is on the FDA’s upcoming decision for Tivozanib, the company’s drug for the third and fourth-line treatment of advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC). The drug is already approved to treat adult patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC) in other regions, specifically in the European Union, Norway, New Zealand and Iceland. The PDUFA date is slated for March 31 and following the positive data from the late-stage study, Baird analyst Michael Ulz believes a successful outcome is in the cards. “tivozanib was shown to significantly increase quality-adjusted time without symptoms or toxicity (Q-TWiST) compared to sorafenib (15.04 vs. 12.78 months; p=0.0493), further highlighting a differentiated tolerability profile based on a quality-of-life measure for tivozanib, despite similar overall survival (OS) outcomes… We continue to see potential for approval based on the TIVO-3 study and expect investor focus to remain on the upcoming PDUFA date (March 31), which we view as the next key catalyst," Ulz opined. To this end, Ulz rates AVEO a Buy along with a $17 price target. The implication for investors? Upside of 106%. (To watch Ulz’s track record, click here) It has been relatively quiet when it comes to other analyst activity. In the last three months, only 2 analysts have issued ratings. However, as they were both Buys, the word on the Street is that AVEO is a Moderate Buy. Based on the $13.50 average price target, shares could climb ~64% higher in the next twelve months. (See AVEO stock analysis on TipRanks) To find good ideas for biotech stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks’ Best Stocks to Buy, a newly launched tool that unites all of TipRanks’ equity insights. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the featured analysts. The content is intended to be used for informational purposes only. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment.

Ethereum vs Bitcoin - Similarities and Differences

Ethereum is similar to Bitcoin in the sense that they are both cryptocurrencies - non-centrally issued, digital currencies. Another similarity between the two is that the both operate using the proof-of-work consensus. This means that for both Ethereum and Bitcoin, the verification and confirmation of transactions requires a network-wide consensus of nodes. Due to this condition, both of them are slow when it comes to transaction processing.

Ethereum is slightly faster than Bitcoin: it normally processes 10-15 transactions per second, while Bitcoin processes 3-5. At least, this is true for the current version of Ethereum. One of the big expectations in the market right now is that the upcoming 2.0 upgrade will provide faster transactions, among other things.

But the major point that separates Ethereum from Bitcoin are smart contracts – the term most closely associated with Ethereum blockchain. Smart contracts are digital contracts that have a variety of applications.

Without going too far from the topic of Ethereum 2.0, it makes sense to mention Beacon chain., that is used to provide an upgrade to Ethereum’s features. Beacon chain makes use of a proof-of-stake consensus algorithm rather than proof-of-work – this means that it uses tokens instead of traditional computational power in order to process transactions.

Beacon chain employs shardchains, smaller groups of nodes that process their own portions of transactions in parallel, without needing to achieve a consensus across the entire network. This is meant to improve Ethereum’s scalability and vastly increase its throughput rate. At CEX.IO, we expect that the Ethereum 2.0 throughput rate will be able to reach 15,000 transactions per second, allowing Ethereum to match any centralized payment system in transaction processing speed.

In terms of price stability, it is clear that Bitcoin has a lead over Ethereum. BTC rate is a major point in defining the entire cryptocurrency market picture. And the two are positively correlated - when Bitcoin rises or falls, the same happens to Ethereum. And Bitcoin has an around four times higher market capitalization; therefore, it is less unstable in its price action.

As far as the trading of both assets is concerned, at CEX.IO we observed that in December 2020 ETH/USD trading volumes grew by 20%, while BTC/USD grew by 47.5%. We believe that it may represent a psychological trait for users – due to the rally, BTC became too “expensive” to fund trading strategies with, too risky to trade. This also indicates that Ethereum is no longer following Bitcoin’s price fluctuations as closely as it used to. And this divergence may become more apparent in the future.

Watch Out Bitcoin. Ethereum Is Ascending to New Heights

Ethereum is the second-largest cryptocurrency behind Bitcoin. While interest in the latter is soaring, Ethereum is growing in popularity as well.

Ethereum is an open-source, blockchain-based distributed computing platform that can support smart contract functionality. That’s a complicated way of saying that Ethereum not only makes a cryptocurrency called ether possible, but it can also support the launch of new cryptocurrencies and make it possible to crowdsource funding for new projects.

“According to data presented by Aksje Bloggen, Ethereum’s daily trading volume hit $48.2bn this week (second week of February), a 220% increase year-over-year,” writes the research firm. “In February 2019, the 24-hour trading volume of the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency amounted to $2.6bn, revealed the CoinMarketCap data. Over the next twelve months, this figure jumped by more than 470% and hit $14.9bn in February last year.”

Why Ethereum Over Bitcoin?

The simplest way to think about Ethereum is to compare it to something you probably use every day: your mobile phone. If you have an Android or iOS phone, you have apps that can perform a wide variety of functions from ordering an Uber to mapping a route across town.

What gives Ethereum an edge against Bitcoin is its implementation of smart contracts, which allows developers to run decentralized applications, or dapps, directly on the Ethereum blockchain. Although the possibilities for smart contracts are nearly endless, a few dominant use cases have emerged.

With traditional cryptocurrency exchanges, a user has to deposit their funds in order to make trades. This requires the exchange to act as a trusted custodian of those funds. Yet with several major exchanges having suffering hacks, many investors are wary of depositing large sums of cryptocurrency onto exchanges that may not be trustworthy custodians.

Decentralized exchanges mitigate the custodian problem entirely. Rather than trusting an exchange as the custodian, a user can simply send their funds into a smart contract address, which gives the user and only the user control over their funds. All trades are executed directly on the Ethereum blockchain, which ensures that the user always has full control over their exchange balances.

“Besides a significant increase in daily trading volume, Ethereum also witnessed a surge in daily transactions,” adds Aksje Bloggen. “In February 2019, the average number of Ethereum daily transactions amounted to almost 541,500, revealed the CoinMetrics data. In the next twelve months, this figure rose to 620,400. However, the number of transactions significantly increased in the second quarter of 2020, reaching 1.1 million in June, almost a 90% jump in six months. The increasing trend continued in the following months with the figure rising to over 1.2 million in December last year.”

For more news, information, and strategy, visit the Crypto Channel.

The opinions and forecasts expressed herein are solely those of Tom Lydon, and may not actually come to pass. Information on this site should not be used or construed as an offer to sell, a solicitation of an offer to buy, or a recommendation for any product.