Ethereum Jumps, But the Real Winners Are Optimism, Arbitrum, and Polygon

By Mat Di Salvo

Of the top 20 biggest digital coins and tokens, Ethereum (ETH) is doing well—it's up over 6.5% in 24 hours to a current price of $2,351, according to CoinGecko.

But that's nothing compared to the projects aimed at scaling the network.

Optimism (OP), the token behind the protocol which "rolls up" ETH transactions to speed up the major blockchain, is up 30% in the past day. It's currently trading hands for $4.11.

And Arbitrum (ARB), which also cuts Ethereum costs and fees, is up by over 16% in 24 hours, coming in priced at $1.50.

Meanwhile MATIC, the 13th biggest digital currency by market cap which runs on Polygon, is up 12% over the day. Its price currently stands at little over a dollar at $1.05.

Ethereum scalers speed things up on the notoriously expensive and costly blockchain by settling them on a layer-2 network or sidechain before reporting back to Ethereum. The idea is that developers can build things with ease until Ethereum's congestion issues are potentially sorted through future upgrades.

Such projects have received renewed interest this year as those wanting to speed up Ethereum have worked hard on building solutions to its slow network.

The boom in such projects' prices comes at a time when major Ethereum-competitor Solana (SOL) has been on a tremendous run.

Though SOL is up less than 2% today following recent spikes, over the past three months it has surged by over 440%, having made a comeback through November and December. It's now trading above $108 and is by far the biggest gainer among the largest cryptocurrencies over a 90-day period.

Elsewhere, Bitcoin (BTC), the biggest digital asset by market cap, is up more than 2% and trading at $43,067.

But major Bitcoin spinoffs are doing well: Bitcoin SV (BSC) is up nearly 43% in the past day—priced at $68.68—and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is currently priced at $250.51. That's an 11% bump in 24 hours.

The entire crypto industry's market cap today is $1.76 trillion, a 4.2% jump over the past 24 hours.

Edited by Andrew Hayward

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