Ethereum’s price is on the rise! Ethereum may not be as popular or well-known compared to some other cryptocurrencies, but it hit an all-time high of $4 400 recently.
The digital asset quietly touches many people’s lives in different ways – whether that be through payment processing or being used as part payment for goods online purchases.
The crypto world of Bitcoin and Shiba Inu is a complicated one. Ethereum has made its way into the scene, slowly but surely gaining popularity with time as it became more widely known among other coins for what it could do in terms of smart contracts or token sales on their blockchain networks – all at an affordable price point.
ETH is a popular crypto asset with nearly half of all digital currency currently in circulation. It has been on the rise recently, and it continues to be an important part of many people’s portfolios – despite being ranked number two behind Bitcoin among top cryptocurrencies by market capitalization at $520 billion as at the time of writing.
One of the most anticipated updates for Ethereum is about to happen. ETH 2.0 will shift them from their current proof-of-work network, which has become increasingly inefficient over time thanks largely in part because it takes more energy than ever before just make one small transaction on this cryptocurrency’s blockchain – whose value could potentially skyrocket due to its popularity among investors recently–to an improved version called “proof-stake.”
The transition should finally bring stability back into crypto markets after the crash triggered by China tightening regulations around bitcoin exchanges there despite worldwide fears that led many other countries/ jurisdictions doing so to later downline.
The Ethereum community has more than 8 million worth of Ether under a deposit contract for what they believe will be the new standard: Ethereum 2.0
The belief that this project could lead to something big and revolutionary amongst other developers is not without merit as there have been many successful experiments conducted on top-level networks like HydraChain, IPFS & Filecoin.
What’s really going on with Ethereum? The crypto market is booming, and so is the number of coins. But this time it may not be just a coincidence: since December 2017, when ETH underwent a hard fork in order to increase its transaction capacity by 20-fold (from 2 transactions per second to 40), everything has happened quickly for one currency – even though other cryptocurrencies exist which also boast higher speeds! Some analysts believe that there’s more here than meets the eye.
ETH as an Investment
Despite the latest bullish rally in Ethereum, EXMO UK’s Chief Business Development Officer, Maria Stankevich, believes that it’s still not overpriced. She says;
“If we speak about ETH as an investment, I would definitely recommend it, as I don’t think that the coin is overpriced, there is still room for growth. Usually, the price is pumped up by the “extra” money supply, when people start spending some funds that are not enough for a car or a house, on cryptocurrency. I think that current cash flows that push the price up brought by institutional investors that are diversifying their portfolios.”
On the recent network updates, Maria says,
“As for the new Ethereum update, I would mention one important change: they tightened the rules for penalties there. In general, they talked about this for a long time. For me, it is a bit unreasonably harsh, but this is my opinion. Initially, they were reduced, because the possible bugs in the software were more likely to happen than some dirty actions of the validator, but now they have made them what they should be.”
She adds, “For example, Inactivity Leak, an offline penalty that increases each epoch, is applied to validators during extended times of no finality (e.g. if one-third or more are offline or not on the canonical chain). This ensures the chain can eventually regain finality even under catastrophic conditions. Slashing: a penalty applied to validators that sign explicitly malicious messages that could lead to the construction and finalization of two conflicting chains (e.g. two blocks or attestations in the same slot). Third, the update brings about changes in penalty parameters that make inactivity leaks and slashing more punitive than in the pre-Altair era.”
Skyrocketing Demand
Founder of CryptoClear, Johnny McCamley, believes the demand for Ethereum is rising sharply. He says, “Exciting times ahead as Ethereum 2.0 Altair Beacon Chain update had a successful start, with 98.7% of the nodes upgraded. It is also clear to see demand is skyrocketing for ETH, our Member’ inquiries have been blowing up regarding buying more ETH. ETH is still a fantastic buy and is 1 of the 15 projects that we, at CryptoClear, include in our Dollar Cost Averaging plan (DCA Plan) for the long term due to the team, tech maturity, and real-life use case.”
