Ethereum has been on a roll this month, buoyed up by a successful final testnet launch of the first phase of the highly anticipated ETH 2.0 upgrade, and a surging decentralized finance (DeFi) sector.
Ethereum hitting highs
In early Asian trading on Monday morning, ETH prices returned to a 25 month high of just over $435 according to Tradingview.com. The move has followed weekend momentum which built upon gains last week sending Ethereum back to prices not seen since July 2018. It has been leading gains on crypto markets over the past couple of weeks as market capitalization approaches $50 billion. Bitcoin is still a long way ahead though, and is still the king of all crypto assets. BTC has been pretty flat over the weekend, trading just below the $12,000 barrier. The asset topped $11,940 on Sunday but could not break above the heavy resistance that has prevented further gains for most of this month. It has been noted that Bitcoin flow to exchanges has started to increase, just as it did before the mid-March market crash. The long term outlook is still on track for huge gains, if the stock to flow model is anything to go by. The creator of this monetary metric posted an updated chart showing that things are still where they should be for Bitcoin. Other crypto assets performing well over the weekend include Chainlink which has hit its highest ever price of $20. Litecoin, EOS, Stellar and Tron have all picked up a little over the past 24 hours. Total crypto market capitalization has reached $375 billion, its highest level since May 2018.
DeFi top $6 billion
Decentralized finance markets are leading crypto gains as total value locked, in USD terms, has reached its highest ever level of $6.3 billion according to Defipulse.com. New yield farming protocols such as Yam and Curve have been driving gains as liquidity providing becomes the latest crypto craze. Just this month alone, DeFi TVL has surged over 57% as investors and speculators deposit their digital assets in smart contracts for greater returns. Maker is the most popular protocol with a 23% market share, but Curve Finance has surged into second place with over $1 billion locked up following the launch of its CRV governance token late last week.
