Ethereum Will Continue To Beat Bitcoin In 2021, Says deVere Group CEO
What Happened: The founder and chief executive officer of one of the world’s largest independent financial advisory organizations believes that Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) will outperform Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) for the rest of the year.
deVere Group CEO Nigel Green told City AM on Wednesday that Ethereum’s recent run of good form and operability improvements has not gone unnoticed.
“Ethereum is outperforming Bitcoin and it can be expected to continue this trend for the rest of 2021,” he said.
Green highlighted that Ethereum is up by more than 240%, outperforming all other benchmark assets, while Bitcoin is up less than 38% year to date.
In his view, there are two key factors driving Ethereum’s impressive performance.
“First, Ether has a higher level of real-use potential as Ethereum – the platform on which it is the native cryptocurrency – is the most in-demand development platform for smart contracts, thereby highlighting that network’s value not only as a platform for developers but as a worldwide financial utility,” he said.
“Second, investor enthusiasm for the game-changing transition to ETH 2.0, which makes the Ethereum network considerably more scalable, sustainable and secure.”
Read also: Ethereum’s Vitalik Buterin Is Skeptical Of Jack Dorsey’s DeFi Bitcoin Business: ‘It Will End Up Being A Much Weaker Model’
According to him, these upgrades represent a major boost, not just for Ethereum but for blockchain technology itself.
The deVere executive went on to state that his bullish bias towards Ethereum did not hinder his confidence in Bitcoin, and he continued to have optimistic price targets for the leading digital asset.
“I remain confident that Bitcoin will hit, or even surpass, its mid-April all-time high of $65,000 by the end of 2021,” he said.
However, Green maintained that Ethereum’s technical advantages over Bitcoin will mean that its value will exceed it, “probably within five years.”
“There will be peaks and troughs along the way of course, but Ethereum’s ascent to the top of the cryptoverse seems unstoppable,” he said.
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Price Action: At press time, Ethereum was trading at $3,065, slightly up over the past 24-hours.
Bitcoin was also up by 0.11% during the same period and was trading at a price of $45,721 at the time of writing.
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Ethereum 2.0 Staking Is Now Largest Ether Holder at $21.3B
The Ethereum 2.0 staking contract has become the largest holder of the cryptocurrency ether.
According to the blockchain explorer website Etherscan, the top account by balance is Ethereum 2.0 with 6.9 million ETH ($21.3 billion worth). Wrapped ether (WETH) comes in second, holding 6.7 million ETH ($20.6 billion).
“The fact of the deposit contract overtaking the wrapped ether contract as No. 1 doesn’t really mean anything in itself,” said Ben Edgington, lead product owner at ConsenSys. “It just shows that staking on Eth 2.0 is incredibly popular.”
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This shows growing confidence the Ethereum Foundation is going to successfully complete the transition to Ethereum 2.0, said Tim Ogilvie, CEO of Staked, a firm that helps investors stake digital assets on Ethereum as well as on other blockchains including Cardano, Polkadot and Solana.
Wrapped ether is an ERC-20 compatible version of ether, allowing the token to be used in decentralized applications within the Ethereum ecosystem, according to Messari, a cryptocurrency data and analysis firm.
The Ethereum 2.0 contract “is meant to move value into the Beacon Chain in order to secure it as a base layer on proof-of-stake, and then generate an interest rate on top algorithmically,” said Lex Sokolin, head economist at ConsenSys. The Beacon Chain will introduce proof-of-stake to Ethereum. The chain’s role will change over time but is considered a foundational component for the security, sustainability and scalability towards which Ethereum is working.
“That capital is currently a one-way street until more bridges are built, tech matures or through derivative liquidity,” he added.
At press time, ether was trading at $3,082, based on CoinDesk 20 data.
“The 32 ETH deposit minimum for Eth 2.0 presents a barrier to stakers who have less than 32 ETH or prefer to hold liquid assets,” Nansen, a blockchain analytics firm, wrote in a report emailed to CoinDesk on Aug. 17. In order to become a full validator, users need to deposit a minimum of 32 ETH.
Therefore, some users might prefer to stake ETH through an exchange such as Binance or Kraken, or in liquid staking protocols like Lido or Ankr.
The report said that while Kraken and Binance continue to account for a significant proportion of the Ethereum 2.0 stake, they are losing share to alternative staking solutions like Lido, which is a decentralized staking pool.
Source: Nansen
In terms of tracked entities across multiple wallets, Kraken is the biggest depositor.
Triple Halving author says Ethereum will reach $150,000
Dormant Ethereum, one of the key ingredients that sparks a bullrun, shows signs of moving.
As total value locked in the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem gets closer to a new all-time high, Ethereum dominance increases.
Nikhil Shamapant, independent Ethereum analyst and author of the “Ethereum Triple Halving paper,” has a bullish outlook on the altcoin and sets a price target of $150,000.
The top two addresses with the highest Ethereum balances on Etherscan are the ETH2 staking contract with over 7 million ETH and wrapped Ether (WETH) with 6.7 million ETH. The surge in staked Ethereum is driving altcoin’s dominance in the crypto market higher.
Ethereum dominance increases as the altcoin prepares for second leg of the price rally
Currently, Ethereum is trading at $3269, and its dominance is at 17.9%. A direct correlation has emerged between Ethereum’s price and dominance. With the price increase, the altcoin’s dominance has increased consistently over the last five months.
Alongside Ethereum, the volume of wrapped Ethereum used to pay for gas or transaction fees for contracts executed on the network has noted a steady rise. WETH now accounts for nearly 6.7 million Ether, supporting the increase in the second-largest cryptocurrency’s market dominance.
One of the key indicators of a bull run, the movement of dormant Ethereum, was recorded earlier today by Santiment data. Ethereum’s mean Dollar invested age curve represents the average age of the Ethereum moving on the blockchain network, and it has significantly flattened.
The movement of Ethereum that was held for a long time indicates the second leg of the altcoin’s price rally.
Ethereum’s mean Dollar invested age.
Independent Ethereum analyst and author of “Ethereum, The Triple Halving,” Nikhil Shamapant, remains bullish on the altcoin. In a recent interview with Divya Narendra, CEO, and co-founder of SumZero, Nikhil Shamapant set a new price target for Ethereum at $150,000.
Shamapant explains how Ethereum staked in the ETH2 contract reduces the total number of Ether in circulation and drives the price higher through an enforced shortage.
One thing I’ve been really trying to pound the table on is that staked ETH it’s like economically enforced hodling right. It’s always going to be staked; there’s going to be a circulating supply of staked ETH, separately there’s going to be a circulating supply of unstaked ETH. There’s no fear or cultural change that’s going to cause these hodlers to suddenly sell.
According to FXStreet analysts, looking at the market capitalization and dominance of Ethereum, there have been four consecutive up weeks. Any close below $2900 would be a bearish development; on the upside, $3587 is the level to watch out for a bullish breakout.