Ethereum hits highest price since June 2019

Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, today hit a peak of $316, its highest price since June 2019. The current price of Ethereum is $308, according to data from metrics site CoinMarketCap. 

The pump started way back on Wednesday night (UTC), when Ethereum, in about ten minutes, rose from $245 to $262. But no dump followed. Instead, on Thursday afternoon, it increased once again, from $265 to $277. Then an upward crawl, reaching $285 by Saturday afternoon.

And then came the latest boom. Between Saturday evening and Sunday morning, Ethereum rose by ten percent, from $285 to $316.

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+9.44%$2,743.35

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Ethereum was joined in its success by elder sibling Bitcoin, the oldest cryptocurrency and the largest by market capitalization. Bitcoin surpassed $10,000 for a few moments on Sunday morning, the first time it’s done so since the beginning of June, bucking almost two months of near-stagnation. 

Ethereum’s price increase likely has something to do with the rise of DeFi, or decentralized finance. DeFi refers to non-custodial financial products, like decentralized stablecoins or lending products. Most DeFi protocols live on Ethereum. 

DeFi is a massively expanding industry. Yesterday, Decrypt reported that there was $4 billion locked in DeFi smart contracts. That’s a lot, but consider the growth: on Tuesday, $3 billion was locked in DeFi protocols. About two and a half weeks ago, on July 7, it hit $2 billion.

The amount of value locked in DeFi just hit $4 billion

Decentralized finance (DeFi) is continuing to grow at a rapid pace. The total value locked in the industry has just hit $4 billion. DeFi refers to decentralized, non-custodial financial products, such as crypto lending protocols and decentralized stablecoins. Most of them live on Ethereum. The total value locked means the amount of money running through its smart contracts. The indutry is growing incredibly quickly. On Tuesday, the total value locked in DeFi applications hit $3 billion, metrics...

DeFi has been rapidly expanding ever since the trend of yield farming. The trend, which started in mid-June, involves users earning token incentives from DeFi lending protocols in exchange for depositing their cryptocurrency. 

Tokens from the top DeFi lending protocols, $LEND (from Aave) and $COMP (from Compound), have spiked in value. (Granted, $COMP was only introduced on June 18, but quickly increased from $80 to $319 within a week, before settling at about $161.)

What’s good for DeFi, clearly, is good for Ethereum.