In brief
- Ethereum passed $400 today—a mark it hasn’t hit since August 2018.
- But the gains were shortlived and it sank.
- Rising interest in decentralized finance (DeFi) has been a key driver lately.
- ETH has grown 68% over the last month alone.
The recent Ethereum pump continued though Saturday night California time, when ETH briefly broke the $400 barrier, continuing the cryptocurrency’s immense gains. Then at around 9:15 PM PST, it plunged like a World War 11 dive bomber, crashing from $413 to $359 in less than a half-hour.
The evening began on a bouyant note, with the price of Eth climbing to giddy heights. Ethereum hasn’t traded at $400 since early August 2018. The Saturday night benchmark came following a 14.1 percent increase over the previous 24 hours, with ETH rising from $351.19 before ultimately peaking at $413. As of this writing, at 1054 PM PST, the price had stabilized somewhat at $$374, according to CoinGecko.
Tampa Teen and two others arrested in Twitter "BitCon"
An early morning raid staged by a joint task force of federal law enforcement officers nabbed a Tampa, Florida teenager who they claim pulled off the biggest hack in Twitter’s history. Two other teens—one from Naples, Florida, and the other from Bognor Regis, a seaside resort on the southern coast of England—were subsequently arrested. Investigators said that KYC records obtained from Binance and Coindesk, which showed stolen Bitcoin moving into customer accounts, led them to the suspects. Flori...
On Friday, Ethereum broke the $340 mark for the first time since July 2019, and on Saturday reached a market capitalization of $40 billion—the first time since August 2018.
The day started out like a pretty good birthday present for Ethereum, which marked the five-year anniversary of its mainnet launch on July 30.
Still, it’s the future of Ethereum that appears to be fueling its recent price growth. The rise of decentralized finance (DeFi) is a key contributor, with over $4 billion being locked up in DeFi apps and limiting the trading supply. On Friday, the DeFi market cap hit $8 billion for the first time.
Is decentralization the answer to DeFi's SEC problem?
The creators of the third and fourth largest DeFi (decentralized finance) protocols, Synthetix and Aave, this week took steps to further relinquish control over the networks to their token holders, ending their reign over the networks they have spent the last few years building. Decentralizing the network is a common card played by DeFi projects to give control to their users, who can use it to vote on the future of their network without having to rely on some centralized organization. Decentral...
Also, the release of Ethereum 2.0 is just around the corner, with the cryptocurrency switching from the current proof-of-work model to proof-of-stake, as well as utilizing sharding techniques to speed up transactions on the blockchain.
Breaking the $400 barrier represents a dramatic turnaround for Ethereum, which hovered around the $110 mark in March following the “Black Thursday” market crash as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic reaching the West.
Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed by the author are for informational purposes only and do not constitute financial, investment, or other advice.
