Bitcoin Could Boom 430% but Ethereum May Still Steal its Thunder

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Bitcoin believers may have new reason to rejoice following the stimulus checks, but Ethereum has use cases on its side.

U.S. President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID Relief Bill has passed congress and stimulus checks are soon to be distributed. Early signs indicate recipients are ready to buy Bitcoin.

A survey by Mizuho Securities showed that out of 235 participants who expect to receive stimulus checks from the COVID Relief Bill, 10% are interested in investing in Bitcoin. It’s a small sample size, but according to the survey investing in Bitcoin was a more popular response than investing in traditional stocks.

If that kind of runaway popularity doesn’t move you in itself, consider that it could translate into $40 billion dollars running like a river directly from Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus package into Bitcoin.

In the same week, Bank of America strategists suggested to Bloomberg that the price of BTC can be moved 1% for just $93 million.

Bank of America strategists said in a note to Bloomberg on Wednesday: “Bitcoin is extremely sensitive to increased dollar demand. We estimate a net inflow into Bitcoin of just $93 million would result in price appreciation of 1%, while the similar figure for gold would be closer to $2 billion or 20 times higher. In contrast, the same analysis for the 20-year-plus Treasuries shows that multibillion money flows do not have a significant impact on price, pointing to the much larger and stable nature of the U.S. Treasuries markets,”

If you take the survey and projections on face value, you could surmise Bitcoin prices will be moved by over 430% by the influx of $40,000,000 flowing in from invested U.S. COVID Relief money.

See also: How to Buy Bitcoin (BTC)

It seems reasonable to expect the 12 month Bitcoin bull run to continue, making it the crypto success story of 2021, right?

DeFi Could Steal Bitcoin’s Thunder

Before the Bitcoin bull run, DeFi was a strong competitor as the most dominant story in crypto. BTC’s new price heights have made the world’s most famous cryptocurrency again the center of attention. Bitcoin may always be the star of the cryptoworld and certainly has seen wide popularity and acceptance as a store of value, but Ethereum’s fortunes have generally kept pace with and possibly exceeded Bitcoin since the end of last year.

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Since December 2020, Bitcoin has risen from over $28,000 to more than $58,000 (up roughly 207%). Ethereum has traveled from more than $746 to over $1800 (up roughly %240).

This week, Bank of America published a report titled “Bitcoin’s Dirty Little Secrets”. Excerpts from the report are unflattering to the world’s most famous cryptocurrency.

Some of the statements coming from the report include:

“The main argument for Bitcoin is not diversification, stable returns, or inflation protection, but sheer appreciation…”

“There is no good reason to own BTC unless you see prices going up…”

And they point out Bitcoin’s environmental impact is not desirable, stating: “we calculate that a $1bn dollar inflow into Bitcoin is equal to 1.2mn cars driven over the course of a year or 12.7mn barrels of oil.”

They go on to extol the virtues of Ethereum, stating in the report: “Bitcoin is the most talked about cryptocurrency but Ethereum [the blockchain] has more features, including being more flexible in its hosting of decentralized finance (DeFi) than the Bitcoin blockchain.”

“DeFi does, however, show the opportunity which (distributed ledger technology) offers to finance. We believe that one of the best differences against being disintermediated by DeFi would be mainstream finance grasping these opportunities.”

The Hopes and Fears of DeFi…

As a digital currency, Bitcoin is simply designed with a more limited range of use cases compared to Ethereum which has smart contract capabilities. Arguably, Ethereum is the needed sequel to Bitcoin’s success. But how will their performances compare in 2021?

“Bitcoin is the asset of choice for investors looking for a store of value investment characteristics in the cryptocurrency market. Success then is an ongoing price appreciation for this asset. And appreciate it will as long as investors continue to believe in the future of blockchain and cryptocurrencies. Ethereum, on the other hand, is not only a cryptocurrency. It is a network that supports smart contracts, Dapps (decentralized applications), and Defi (decentralized finance) projects. Investors that are looking to invest in up-and-coming tech should pay extra attention to this crypto asset. Over 41 Billion dollars is currently locked in DeFi projects on Ethereum blockchain compared with 4 Billion only 8 months ago. That’s what success continues to look like for Ethereum this year as well – ongoing expansion and innovation,” Tally Greenberg, Head of Business Development at Allnodes said.

Phase 0 of Ethereum 2.0 – known as “Serenity” – launched on December 1, 2020. The hope for this upgrade to the Ethereum network is meant to address the needs for speed, efficiency, and scalability.

“BTC is unlikely to be dethroned as the leading cryptocurrency, but the growth shown on the Ethereum blockchain is hard to bet against. They will naturally be compared ‘against’ one another although this makes little sense from a functional point of view since each is vying for separate and mutually beneficial use-cases. BTC’s ‘digital gold’ narrative is straightforward which is beneficial for attracting new users who may be intimidated by the apparently more complex and dynamically evolving ETH narrative,” Jason Peckham, Analyst at Invictus Capital said.

It remains to be seen whether Ethereum 2.0 will handle the need for speed to support the DeFi range of use cases.

“To me, Ethereum looks very attractive for long-term purchases, since it has a much greater technical potential for application than Bitcoin. The Ethereum blockchain programmability offers incredible growth opportunities. Bitcoin with its limited emission is rather a tool for saving and paying. Ethereum, in turn, is a tool for real usage of blockchain technology in third-party projects,” Dyanis Zabauski, CEO of Coinmatics said.

But nevermind the actual real-world uses – can Ethereum compete with Bitcoin’s price performance?

“I think it’s highly likely that ETH will beat BTC in terms of price performance in 2021… Ethereum has not fully realized the benefit from the growing popularity of DeFi services and NFTs. The exploding NFT market will directly benefit the value of ETH and I think that ETH has room to grow until its price encompasses the current excitement around NFTs,” Noam Levenson cryptocurrency writer and founder of Narrow Straight Writing.

Some experts point to lagging performance as a reason to keep an eye on Ethereum, as we may see much more movement in 2021.

“From a relative performance standpoint, ETH the second-biggest cryptocurrency is lagging Bitcoin up only 20% from it’s All-Time Highs vs Bitcoin 175%. In previous cycles, we have seen ETH catch up to BTC growth when BTC begins to correct because the profits taken from BTC are cycled into altcoins. Because ETH is one to two cycles back from BTC in its growth cycle it makes sense that return on the laggard would outperform the larger market cap of BTC from here,” Jake Wujastyk Chief Market Analyst at TrendSpider said.

Until Ethereum 2.0 is a known quantity, there will be doubts about its ability to meet the already tremendous need for bandwidth to support transactions.

“Ethereum might beat Bitcoin in terms of percentage gain this year. So far in 2021, ETH has increased by value by nearly 150%, while bitcoin has gone up around 90%. However, it is unlikely that ETH will take over in terms of market capitalization because bitcoin is the cryptocurrency with the most people behind it in terms of adoption and use. Many view bitcoin as digital gold and major corporations and institutional investors are adding it to their balance sheets. Ethereum is unscalable in its current iteration and acts more as a platform for decentralized applications than a store of value” Ben Weiss, president and COO of CoinFlip said.

The launch of an improved Ethereum network is a testament to the strength of the project – but also represents change. Change conveys risk – while Bitcoin is simple, immutable, and constantly rising in value.

“I am not yet convinced DeFi is as groundbreaking as its followers deem it to be. The idea of yield farming sounds a great deal like smart contract hot potato with investors jumping from project to project, hoping they aren’t the last ones to hold the bag,” Don Wyper, COO at DigitalMint said.

Institutional investors have been key to driving the value of Bitcoin over the past 12 months. Will those same traditional investing giants turn their attention to Ethereum?

“Eventually some institutional investors will acquire ETH in order to expand their crypto exposure, while others will trade the recently launched CME ETH futures (interest is still low with volumes 8% of the CME BTC Futures). Others will acquire ETH in order to utilize and experiment with some of the applications, particularly in DeFi. However, I don’t see much movement comparable to bitcoin in the near term,” Jason Lau, COO at OKCoin said.

Conclusion

As many respondents pointed out, comparisons between Ethereum and Bitcoin make sense from an investor point of view, but the comparisons don’t go much further than that.

“BTC and ETH are different: BTC is a currency token while the ETH is a utility token. If mainstream institutional investors get into ETH, it would mean that mainstream institutions validate not only the current value of ETH, but also the Ethereum ecosystem as a whole. We have not seen signs of mainstream institutions being involved in Ethereum’s applications. So, in order for institutional investors to get on board, it would take more time and market education throughout 2021 and beyond,” Haohan Xu, CEO of Apifiny said

It may take a shift in mainstream understanding – or even a mild learning curve – to get traditional investors who have tried the familiar Bitcoin to understand the power of DeFi, but it seems the mighty bull run market is raising all ships in the cryptoworld and institutional investors are already getting on board.

“Institutional investors are already getting on board with Ethereum. Just recently, Grayscale, the world’s largest Crypto asset manager, purchased more Ethereum than Bitcoin for a change. Chinese public firm Meitu also grabbed 15K of Ether not too long ago. Galaxy Digital’s ETH funds raised 32 Million in less than a month. The launch of Ethereum Futures on the CME, the launch of Canadian ETH ETFs, and we’re just scratching the surface here… I anticipate a further surge of institutional investments in Ethereum. This is just the beginning,” Greenberg said.

Cover image modified from photo by Mater Miliano from Pixabay

See more from Benzinga

Ethereum Mining Difficulty Registers a New As ETH Price Targets New ATH of $2500

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Ethereum network’s mining difficulty peaked to a new all-time-high 5,950,622,727,915,080, breaking the previous ATH of 5,946,888,973,277,870. The rising mining difficulty comes at a time when there is a lot of discussion around Ethereum’s rising gas fee and traders shifting to other platforms.

📈 #Ethereum $ETH Mining Difficulty just reached an ATH of 5,950,622,727,915,080 Previous ATH of 5,946,888,973,277,870 was observed on 16 March 2021 View metric:https://t.co/s9t4z9o8ba pic.twitter.com/WmUnPbib7y — glassnode alerts (@glassnodealerts) March 20, 2021

The on-chain metrics for Ethereum look quite strong as the demand for ETH around $1,800 price has been quite significant. ETH price has also seen a trend reversal with price narrowly missing the head and shoulder pattern formation followed by a bullish breakout which might help the second-largest cryptocurrency retest its previous ATH of $2,036. One analyst predicted that ETH could be well on its way towards $2,500.

Apart from growing demand, the increasing volume of ETH locked in ETH 2.0 mainnet could also lead to a supply crisis, and at a time when its institutional offering has just begun, the supply crunch could help its price further.

Altcoin Market Cap Nears ATH

Bitcoin’s massive growth this bull season has overshadowed most of the other developments as the top cryptocurrency more than tripled its 2017 high and its market cap reached the $1 trillion mark for the first time. Along with Bitcoin, the altcoin market has also grown to new highs and registered a new ATH of $684 billion.

The Altcoin market’s new ATH has propelled it to the same levels as 2017 and if it mimics the previous market movements, the market cap could grow exponentially. The fact that Ethereum and many other altcoins have already registered new ATHs, the next bull cycle could see these altcoins rise further as talks of Bitcoin being in a supercycle grow stronger.

Rekt Capital, a crypto analyst pointed out the recent altcoin market cap ATH and how it is at the same level as the 2016 post which the altcoin market cap registered a new ATH of $473 Billion. The 2017 high was first breached in early February and retested towards the end of the month. The month of March saw the altcoin market cap add another $200 billion to its 2017 high.

Altcoin Market Cap launched into new All Time Highs from the very same level that launched Altcoin Market Cap into new December 2017 All Time Highs A perfect example of market cyclicality if there ever was one#BTC $ETH #Bitcoin https://t.co/h1kkiZ4SLj pic.twitter.com/5sMEbkS4BD — Rekt Capital (@rektcapital) March 20, 2021

To keep track of DeFi updates in real time, check out our DeFi news feed Here.

Ethereum, Litecoin, and Ripple’s XRP – Daily Tech Analysis – March 20th, 2021

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The Daily Beast

Public DomainBy Michael McAuliff | KHNThe lungs Bill Thompson was born with told a gruesome, harrowing and unmistakable tale to Dr. Anthony Szema when he analyzed them and found the black spots, scarring, partially combusted jet fuel and metal inside.The retired Army staff sergeant had suffered catastrophic lung damage from breathing incinerated waste burned in massive open-air pits and probably other irritants during his tour of duty in Iraq. “There’s black spots that are burns, particles all over; there’s metal. It was all scarred,” said Szema, a pulmonologist and professor who studies toxic exposures and examined Thompson’s preserved lung tissue. “There was no gas exchange anywhere in that lung.”Thompson is still alive, surviving on his second transplanted set of lungs. Yet the story burned into the veteran’s internal organs is not one that has been entirely convincing to the U.S. government.The military has not linked the burn pits to illness. That means many who were exposed to burn pits and are sick do not qualify for benefits under any existing program.Pfizer’s Newest Vaccine Plant Has Persistent Mold Issues and a History of RecallsRetirement and health benefits for members of the military depend on factors like length of service, active or reserve status, deployments to combat zones and whether the military considers specific injuries or illnesses to be service-related. Thompson has been able to get care through the Department of Veterans Affairs for his lung disease but has not been able to secure other benefits, like early retirement pay.“I was denied my Army retirement because if it was not a combat action, then I don’t receive that retirement,” Thompson said at a Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee hearing last week on service members’ exposures to toxins.Thompson is one of at least 3.5 million veterans since 2001 who have served in war zones where the U.S. military decided to dispose of its trash by burning it, according to VA estimates.It’s not clear how many people within that population have gotten sick from exposure. Only a small fraction—234,000—have enrolled in the VA’s online burn pit registry. Veterans’ advocacy groups have said the majority of claims to the agency stemming from toxic exposures are denied, even as most former service members report contacts with toxins in their deployments.Soldiers returning from tours in the global war on terror have reported debilitating illnesses almost from its beginning, but got little traction with the military. This year, though, the likelihood of congressional action is high, with Democrats expressing interest and a president who suspects burn pits are to blame for his son’s death.President Joe Biden’s son Beau died of brain cancer in 2015 at age 46. He had deployed to Iraq in two sites with burn pits—at Baghdad and Balad—around the same time Thompson was at Camp Striker, near the Baghdad airport.“Because of exposure to burn pits—in my view, I can’t prove it yet—he came back with stage 4 glioblastoma," Biden said in a 2019 speech. In testimony at the March 10 hearing, Shane Liermann, who works for the group Disabled American Veterans, told the committee that 78 percent of burn pit claims are denied. “Part of the problem is VA is not recognizing that exposure as being toxic exposures,” Liermann said. Aleks Morosky, with the Wounded Warrior Project, said that in his group’s survey of 28,000 veterans last year, 71 percent said they had “definitely” been exposed to toxic substances or hazardous chemicals, and 18 percent said they had “probably” been exposed. Half of those people rated their health as poor or fair. Only about 16 percent of the service members who believed they had suffered exposure said they got treatment from the VA, and 11 percent said they were denied treatment.Thompson, who is 49, said care for his lung disease is often slow and sometimes denied. It took the VA three years to approve an air purifier for his home to filter out allergens, and the VA refused to help pay for the removal of dust-trapping carpets, he said.Thompson’s presence at the hearing, though, was not just meant to put the spotlight on the VA. The military’s entire approach to toxic exposure is a morass that leaves ill soldiers and veterans like Thompson trying to navigate a bureaucracy more labyrinthine than the Pentagon’s corridors.After Thompson was shipped back to Fort Stewart in Georgia, his medical ordeal was at first addressed within the military system, including a year at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, where doctors found his lungs filled with titanium, magnesium, iron and silica.Yet he said he didn’t qualify for the Army’s traumatic-injury insurance program, which might have helped him pay to retrofit his home in West Virginia. And he can’t get his military retirement pay until he’s 60.“I may not live to be age 60. I turn 50 this year,” Thompson said.Illustrating the problem, several officials at the hearing with the Department of Defense, the Army and the National Guard were unable to explain why Thompson—with 23 years of service between the Guard and Army—might have such a hard time qualifying for retirement benefits when the evidence of his lungs and the findings of the Army’s own doctors are so vivid and extreme.Anti-Immigrant Hate Snarls the South’s Vaccine RolloutFor advocates who have been working on the problem for decades, it reminds them all too vividly of Agent Orange, which the military is still coming to grips with.“It’s already been, since the first Persian Gulf [War]—we’re talking 30 years—and since burn pits were again active, since 2001,” said Liermann. “We’re way behind the curve here.”Although Congress has done relatively little to deal with burn pits, many members seem to at least be thinking along the same lines. The Senate Veterans’ Affairs hearing promised to be something of a kickoff to a year when lawmakers are poised to offer a slew of bills designed to confront the military’s inability to care for service members poisoned during their deployments.“Make no mistake about it,” said the committee chairman, Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.). “We hold these hearings for two reasons: to gather information for the committee members and to help educate the VA that they might take action before Congress does.”Republicans have also shown growing interest in the problem, offering targeted bills to ensure a handful of toxin-related diseases are covered by the VA.At the hearing, conservative freshman Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) seemed especially moved.“We got to do a better job of taking care of our young people,” Tuberville said. “If we’re going to go to war, we got to understand we got to pay the price for it on both ends.”There is also likely to be high-profile support and attention when revised legislation starts rolling out this spring.The broadest bill likely to be offered was first introduced by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) in the Senate and Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-Calif.) in the House in late 2019, with a boost from former “Daily Show” host Jon Stewart and a cadre of 9/11 responders who are turning their attention to toxic exposures.Indeed, Ruiz and Gillibrand’s legislation is modeled in part on the 9/11 health act that passed in 2015. The burn pit bill would remove the burden of proving a service-related connection.It would vastly simplify the lives of people like Thompson.“I am a warrior of the United States of America. I gave my lungs for my country,” Thompson said.He was cut off before he could finish, but his prepared remarks concluded, “Hopefully, after hearing my story, it will bring awareness for not only me but others who are battling the same or similar injuries related to burn pit exposures from Iraq or Afghanistan.”KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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