Ethereum and its native coin, Ether, have expanded the use of blockchain-based platforms more than its predecessor, Bitcoin. The Ethereum Blockchain was created not just as a storage of value and means of trade but as a safeguard against malicious actors by running gas fees and these same transactions through their platform. Ethereum launched in 2015.
In this update, we’ll go over what’s new in ether cryptocurrency news and cryptocurrency exchanges around the world.
Celsius running into liquidity issues at current price
According to Kaiko, third-party asset data provider Celsius is encountering liquidity issues about selling their staked Ethereum to investors. Celsius has been one of the top crypto token lenders on the market, both in centralized and decentralized applications. The analysis was done on their exchange curve. Market depth was also analyzed and showed that downward pressure was mounting.
A sale of the staked Ethereum within the platform would demolish all open interest, leading to a further crash in the Ethereum price. This comes with the initial announcement of an official bear market and a 50% chance of a recession in the near future.
Three Arrows Capital liquidates Ethereum at a loss
Due to unstable market conditions, the market capitalization of cryptocurrency exchanges and ETH has put Three Arrows Capital on the verge of insolvency (or so the rumors say).
BlockFI was one such lender that was affected. Three Arrows Capital realized they must sell their staked position at a loss. The firm has hired a legal team to pursue further options on their insolvency scares and future outlook.
This news comes at a time when Babel Finance, another financial provider that also dabbles in crypto – has announced the suspension of all Ethereum sales to minimize further liquidity issues and shocks to market capitalization.
Ethereum co-founder speaks on ether trending topics
Blockchain-based platforms were created as a precursor to cryptocurrency, creating a new way to record transactions while increasing the velocity of money through the fastest transfer of assets and wealth the world has ever seen. To date, blockchain has only been used for developing crypto projects. Still, the technology is a marvel – and Vitalik Buterin of Ethereum says it can be used in non-financial applications.
Amongst many theorized uses was its ability to create a “wisdom of the crowd” common knowledge database, allowing participants within that blockchain to access data and see who else has accessed it. This would be a massive software upgrade – the biggest of its kind since the advent of the internet.
Bearish sentiment places downward pressure on markets, Ethereum price
Bitcoin is struggling to stay above the 25k USD mark, with the second-largest cryptocurrency, Ethereum, right on its heels at 1300USD. Altcoins follow suit, as a general investor pessimism has them holding cash, or migrating to historically safe assets such as gold bullion and tangible assets.
This begs the question, is crypto as decentralized as was first thought? Both centralized and decentralized markets are seeing a similar downward trending topic of liquidity issues and market cap problems.
Ethereum protocol developers again delay forced scarcity
Once again, developers have recently announced that they will not yet be implementing a “delay bomb” to their Ethereum node.
The driver behind the news is unclear, as raising the difficulty of mining Ethereum in their 2.0 release on the blockchain would increase synthetic scarcity, allowing the price to surge in the subsequent days and months.
The expected 2-month delay may increase once more, as developers have said it will be “in a few more months” after stating a 2-month goal. Investor sentiment points at difficulties surrounding a possible recession, as well as a planned rollout of the 2.0 application.
Ethereum’s smart contracts test updates: (almost) bug-free
Ethereum is using the Ropsten test network, named Testnet, to push its limits beyond and gauge whether it is ready for its upcoming merge onto the beacon chain proof-of-stake system.
The test dropped by about a 13% participation rate, but this was fixed and returned to 99.2%, says Ethereum foundation developer Parrithose Jayanthi.
The goal of the merge will be to determine their deployment and to make Ethereum more of an attractive investment fundamentally, as speed and participation will be increased exponentially. It will also make ETH more compliant with fund-based ESG investment advice.
Brazilian exchange ordered to pay lost transfer in Ethereum
Brazilian national crypto exchange Foxbit was court-ordered to reimburse a customer who lost their 3000USD worth of Ethereum – a transfer that occurred more than two years ago in February of 2020. The customer claims that the transfer from their ETH wallet to the exchange resulted in an error, and the transfer amount was lost in transit.
Foxbit will appeal the decision, as it claims the customer transferred their assets via a less recognized global network – one that isn’t commonly used. This blockchain-based platform wasn’t named, but Foxbit recommended another method of transacting at the time.
Twitter users split with ETH co-founder Vitalik Buterin
Co-founder of Ethereum Vitalik Buterin has been a recognizable name in the news lately, speaking of Ethereum’s intrinsic value and further applications of their technology. He took to Twitter to ask the crowd if there were any concerns or opinions they felt they would disagree with or if Vitalik made claims or provided views that were out of left field.
Ethereum developer Tim Beiko himself commented, challenging Vitalik on his opinion of the speed at which they can “ship” the information and transactions within their blockchain. Polynya, an Ethereum researcher, has disagreed with Vitalik on his views of soulbound tokens (SBT) – personalized tokens that cannot leave their users.
While Vitalik claims this will increase intrinsic value, Polynya refutes this by saying their scalable value is decided by the support of the financial markets.
ApeCoin influencers to leave Ethereum blockchain
A proposal was brought forward to the whales of ApeCoin (APE) by their decentralized autonomous organization to determine the sentiment of whether they should remain with ETH or find another platform in their native cryptocurrency.
At least three large shareholders, with a combined value of about 71% of APE supply voted against the proposal, with another user holding 15% voting in favor. As to votes per person, 47% are for and 53% are against; the top 41 whales of the APE project are tallied.
This comes as a surprise, as there was an overwhelming push to stay on the platform in early June, with 91% of the votes for staying. Part of the reason for the switch was the response from Yuga Labs (responsible for popular non-fungible tokens (NFT) Bored Ape Yacht Club saying Ape should migrate to their own chain to scale faster.
Race for web 3.0: Ethereum leads, but it is anyone’s game
With Ethereum being the second-largest cryptocurrency (and blockchain-based platform) – it dominates its competition, including Bitcoin, in the race to the Web 3.0 landscape. This comes as a direct result of their early start of development. Ethereum fears Solana and other platforms catching up at breakneck speed.
In terms of numbers, Ethereum boasts an incredible 4000 developers, with Solana in second place with 1000 team members developing on board. Bitcoin, the original cryptocurrency and blockchain provider, comes in third with around 500 developers.
What is the overall feeling on Ethereum?
Ethereum remains at the top as one of the largest digital asset and blockchain protocol providers. Its commitment to decentralization has slowed its development, but this has meant that it cannot sacrifice its values to achieve a proper understanding of what it means to be separate from a centralized system full of fiat currencies, obligations, and structure.
This has garnered much interest, evident in its ability to raise one of the largest development task forces alongside its peers. Cryptocurrency is not yet fully decentralized, as the clear indistinction between downward pressure on centralized financial markets should have shocked crowds to transfer their wealth into cryptos like Ethereum and Bitcoin as a store of value.
The relevant stable prices of gold and other defensive sectors on the stock market (such as utilities and consumer staples) have provided Ethereum with an opportunity to stand out from the rest.
What’s in store for Ethereum? Some FAQs
Ethereum will be watched closely in the coming days to see its progress on Web 3.0, its commitment to servicing other altcoins on the blockchain, their ETH 2.0 rollout, and overall agreement or disagreement with the future of the project – mainly during the statements (past or future) made by Vitalik Buterin.
Can Ether compete with Bitcoin?
In most cases, Ether is competitive with bitcoin transactions’ speed and technological relevance. The project may not be as old, but it has a huge leg up in the future, especially with the development of Web3. Ethereum, unlike Bitcoin, aims to be fully decentralized and works the ESG angle for investors.
Will there be an Ethereum 2.0 coin?
Yes. Ethereum 2.0 is set to launch in the coming months, mainly after the “Merge” has been completed – allowing Ethereum mining to become extremely difficult. This will naturally increase the market cap.
Will ETH 2.0 increase price?
ETH 2.0 will effectively limit the supply, which will increase the price if other efficient market conditions remain the same.
