Key takeaways:
- Ether continues to surge due to enthusiasm about the Merge, while bitcoin soars once again.
- The Ethereum Community Conference (EthCC) was held in Paris with more than 250 presenters.
- CEO of Bacon Protocol asserts that investors priced in inflationary negative news, leading to the current crypto boom.
Bitcoin increases as ether continues to soar.
In Tuesday’s trade, the price of cryptocurrencies continued to surge with growing investor optimism about the economy’s future and the long-awaited Ethereum Merge.
Bitcoin exploded above the $23,000 mark early in the day, at one time surpassing $23,700. The biggest cryptocurrency by market capitalisation was recently trading at $23,600, a 6% rise over the previous 24 hours and a 20% rise over the last week.
Bitcoin breaks above $23,000. Image: TradingView
However, bitcoin’s success pales in comparison to ether; the Ethereum blockchain token has soared almost 50% over the last week as news of the Merge trickles out. The Merge will change the protocol’s proof-of-work approach to a more ecologically friendly proof-of-stake one.
The second-largest crypto by market capitalisation was trading at over $1,500, a rise of more than 1.5 % from the previous day. Other significant cryptocurrencies spent Tuesday in the green, with YGG increasing by over 26 % at one point, ETC, the token of Ethereum Classic, rising by over 15 %.
Noah Hammond, the CEO of asset management AdvisorShares, said on CoinDesk TV’s “First Mover” that cryptocurrency may be nearing a bottom. “It feels like we’re in this pricing trough, bouncing off the bottom and then hitting up to the top. And over the last month, ether has been moving up significantly.”
“Positive momentum, which is nice to see,” Hammond noted.
On Tuesday, some recent results, notably in the financial services industry, were positive, contributing to a surge in the value of cryptocurrencies. Goldman Sachs (GS) and Bank of America (BAC) recently announced quarters exceeding expectations. Even the expected decision of the U.S. central bank to raise interest rates by 75 basis points instead of 100 basis points has encouraged investors.
Ethereum Community Conference
The Ethereum Community Conference (EthCC) was held in Paris with more than 250 presenters and a lecture by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, coinciding with ether’s continued price increase. Ether surpassed a significant technical threshold for the first time in three months, going over the 50-day simple moving average (SMA) of $1,325 and reaching a one-month high above $1,500. At $23,000, Bitcoin has held below its 50-day SMA.
EthCC – Ethereum Community Conference. Image: Twitter/EthCC
Monday was the first time in over six months that the Ether options market exhibited a bullish tilt in favour of Ethereum’s native coin. Meanwhile, for a change, the crypto day’s headlines were primarily devoid of the most recent discoveries concerning insolvent cryptocurrency lenders Celsius Network and Three Arrows Capital.
Karl Jacob, creator and CEO of Bacon Protocol, asserts that investors priced in inflationary negative news, allowing the current crypto boom.
Jacob also mentioned the sector’s strengths. While they have seen multiple businesses fail in this cycle and the strength of decentralised finance’s market resilience as these loans were repaid almost immediately. In contrast, more traditional loans await the courts to determine who gets what. Blockchain and decentralisation continue to garner investor interest despite the failure of billion-dollar enterprises.