UPDATE 4-Ethereum breaks past $3,000 to quadruple in value in 2021

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Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) – Warren Buffett delivered a clear verdict Saturday on the state of the U.S. economy as it emerges from the pandemic: red hot.“It’s almost a buying frenzy,” the Berkshire Hathaway Inc. chief executive officer said during the conglomerate’s annual meeting, which was held virtually from Los Angeles. “People have money in their pocket and they’re paying higher prices,” he said.Buffett attributed the faster-than-expected recovery to swift and decisive rescue measures by the Federal Reserve and U.S. government, which helped kick 85% of the economy into “super high gear,” he said. But as growth roars back and interest rates remain low, many – including Berkshire – are raising prices and there is more inflation “than people would have anticipated six months ago,” he said.Buffett reunited with his long-time friend and business partner Charlie Munger for this year’s meeting. Munger didn’t make it to last year’s meeting in Omaha, Nebraska – Buffett’s hometown – due to the shutdowns across the country. Some shareholders were relieved to see the duo fielding questions together again.“I really feel that both Charlie and Warren displayed their usual and amazing level of acuity and intellectual energy,” said James Armstrong, who manages assets including Berkshire shares as president of Henry H. Armstrong Associates.Buffett and Munger spent hours fielding questions, from the economy, to climate and diversity, the SPAC boom, taxes and succession. Here’s the lowdown:Climate Pressure:Berkshire faced pressure from two shareholders proposals, one to improve transparency related to its efforts on climate change. The topic was bound to be a feature at the meeting – and it was.When asked about the proposals, Buffett stuck to his previous stance. Measures to produce big reports on diversity and climate for his business lines spanning energy to railroads were, he said, “asinine.” The proposals were later voted down.Buffett was also asked about Berkshire’s stake in oil and gas producer Chevron Corp., which it disclosed earlier this year. Buffett said he felt “no compunction” in the least about its ownership in the company, which he said had benefited society in many ways. While he acknowledged the world is shifting away from hydrocarbons, people on the extreme sides of either argument are “a little nuts,” he said.Greg Abel, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Energy, called climate change a “material risk.” He added that they’re setting targets and spending $18 billion over 10 years on transmission infrastructure.Killer SPACs:Buffett warned investors that Berkshire might not have much luck striking deals amid the boom in special purpose acquisition companies that gripped the market over the past year.“It’s a killer,” Buffett said about the influence of SPAC companies on Berkshire’s ability to find businesses to buy. “That won’t go on forever, but it’s where the money is now, and Wall Street goes where the money is.”Buffett, 90, also spent part of Berkshire’s annual meeting Saturday addressing the recent boom in retail and day trading. A lot of people have entered the stock market “casino” over the past year, he said.Tax:Buffett said President Joe Biden’s proposals for a corporate tax hike would hurt Berkshire shareholders. He added that antitrust laws and tax policy could change things for the company but new tax laws wouldn’t alter its no-dividend policy.Succession:Buffett and Munger, 97, fielded the majority of questions at Saturday’s meeting, but their two top deputies Abel and Ajit Jain, who runs the insurers, also shared the stage. Investors were able to get a closer look at the pair who are considered the top candidates for the job.Munger dropped a little mention of the post-Buffett years that drew speculation on social media about the most likely candidate to succeed Buffett. The CEO was pointing out that decentralization doesn’t work everywhere because it requires a certain type of culture that businesses need to have.“Yeah, but we do,” Munger insisted. “And Greg will keep the culture.”Abel has long been considered the top candidate to replace Buffett, especially when he was promoted to a vice chairman role overseeing all non-insurance operations, which gives him a wide array of responsibilities, including oversight of the railroad BNSF and the energy business.Errors:Buffett offered a few mea culpas during Saturday’s meeting. He noted that selling some Apple Inc. stock last year was a mistake and even said that Haven, the health care venture with JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Amazon.com Inc., thought it could fight the “tape worm” of American health care costs but the worm won.“That was probably a mistake,” Buffett said of those Apple stock sales last year. Berkshire still owned a roughly $110 billion stake in the iPhone maker at the end of March. “In fact, Charlie, in his usual low-key way, let me know that you thought it was a mistake too,” he said to Munger, who shared the stage with him.Cash Pile:Before the annual meeting started, the company released its first-quarter earnings, giving investors a dive into the 19.5% operating profit gain during the period.Berkshire ended the quarter with a near-record $145.4 billion of cash on hand as it continued to generate funds faster than Buffett could deploy them. But Buffett also ended pulling back on some capital deployment levers during the period. He bought back just $6.6 billion of Berkshire’s own stock, short of the record $9 billion set in prior quarters, and ended up with the second-highest level of net stock sales in the first quarter in almost five years.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

Can Ethereum prices hit $5,000 in a week? That’s what one crypto expert speculates as Ether mints records

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The No. 2 crypto on the planet is extending its surge into rarefied territory, and that momentum has at least one crypto expert speculating that Ether prices could hit $5,000 within a week.

“Ether is one of the main beneficiaries in the wider explosion in the cryptocurrency market,” wrote Nigel Green, chief executive and founder of deVere Group, in a Monday note.

“The boom over recent months has been fueled by soaring interest from major institutional investors and growing recognition that borderless digital currencies are the future of money,” the CEO said.

“This momentum is likely to build further in the near-term and I believe Ether will hit $5,000 within seven days,” he forecast.

At last check, Ether ETHUSD, +0.36% , the asset that runs atop the Ethereum protocol, was changing hands at $3,237, near an all-time peak, according to CoinDesk data.

The surge for Ether comes as bitcoin BTCUSD, +0.09% has been much more sedate comparably.

Ether values have been supported partly by growing appetite for nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, and other corners of the nascent digital crypto market supported on the Ethereum blockchain.

Indeed, interest in NFTs, the popular authentication asset that has taken the world by storm, has helped to supercharge a rise in appetite for Ethereum, which most NFTs are linked to.

Ethereum, launched in 2015 by a team including Vitarik Buterin, Charles Hoskinson, and Gavin Wood on the concepts behind bitcoin, has come to be known for the ease by which software developers can write bespoke programs atop its network.

The Wall Street Journal wrote that some 7 million new Ethereum addresses — or accounts able to hold ether balances — were created in the first four months of 2021, citing data from analytics firm IntoTheBlock.

Bitcoin’s major selling point as a digital asset has been its claim by enthusiasts as a store of value and as a currency to a lesser extent, but Ethereum’s network is viewed by many as a powerful, open-source, dentralized backbone off which a number of applications could be based.

It has been hoped for by fans, if not anticipated, that Ether would one day exceed the market value of bitcoin, the world’s No. 1 crypto. Such an event is known in certain crypto circles as the “flippening.”

However, as its stands bitcoin’s market value is $1.09 trillion, compared against a market value for Ether of $366 billion, representing the No. 1 and 2 largest crypto in the world, according to CoinMarketCap.com.

Ether prices are up 10% on the day and 341% in the year to date. By comparison, bitcoin prices are up 2% on Monday and a handsome, albeit more subdued, nearly 100% so far in 2021.

Traditional assets have had a tough time keeping pace with the surge in their digital counterparts. The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.70% and the S&P 500 index SPX, +0.27% are both up 11% so far this year, while the Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, -0.48% has gained 8%. Gold prices GC00, +1.45% are down 5.4% so far this year.

So is a romp to $5,000 possible for Ether? It is impossible to know for sure, but a handful of crypto bulls have offered similarly sanguine forecasts, including Dan Morehead, CEO of Pantera Capital, who has been quoted as saying that Ether could crack six figures by 2030.

Boom! Ethereum soars over landmark $US3000 level

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Ethereum has surged over the landmark $US3000 level this morning, just two and a half months after it breached the $US2,000 mark for the first time.

Ether crossed the $US3,000 barrier at 11.39am AEST on Monday and quickly pumped as high as $US3,025 ($3,917) minutes later.

At noon it was trading for $US3,020 ($3,910), up 2.6 per cent in the past 24 hours, 31 per cent in the past week — and 14-fold in the past year.

There was:

#Ethereum is getting ready for $3,000 and we’re still just starting. And I do remember the people who called $ETH dead. — Michaël van de Poppe (@CryptoMichNL) May 2, 2021

Overall the market was actually fairly mixed with about half of the top 100 coins in the red over the past 24 hours, although none were down more than six per cent.

Bitcoin was trading at just over $US58,100 ($74,734), up 0.8 per cent from 24 hours ago, after a brief dip on Sunday.

The biggest gainer among the top 100 coins was OKB Coin, which was up nearly 30 per cent to $US42.42, and earlier this morning had hit an all-time high of $US44.01.

sETH, Maker, Serum, Venus, Leo Token and cETH all hit all-time highs at the same time as Ethereum, according to Coingolive.

Waves, Compound, Solana, DigiByte, Binance Coin and Huboi Token were the other top 100 coins to hit fresh all-time highs in the past day, according to Coingolive.

None of the top 20 coins were up more than 10 per cent but sentiment was bullish and many traders were optimistic that a huge week was ahead.

Crypto twitter is fucking wild this week. Rugs, boxing matches, millions donated to charity, FBI getting called in, kids making retirement money off a few grand you can’t make this shit up if you tried. — CryptoCharles (@CryptoCharles__) May 2, 2021

Bitcoin Fear and Greed Index is 66 ~ Greed pic.twitter.com/wW3wlrBK7e — Bitcoin Fear and Greed Index (@BitcoinFear) May 3, 2021

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