Weekly Wrap-up: Ether Breaks Past $3K – New All Time High (May 3, 2021)
The biggest crypto news from last week. Axie Infinity, JPMorgan, Tesla, etc. Plus Ether just hits all-time high.
Good morning. Welcome to Monday Markets Wrap-up, part of our new series: BitPinas Daily. We will look back at all the major news and updates that happened this week. Crypto is global, but sometimes news that matters happens while we sleep. So we bring to you what’s happening in our space here and abroad. We highlight three to four important news of the past week and list down the rest.
Market Price as of May 3, 2021:
| Bitcoin | $56,601 | -2.1% |
| Ethereum | $2,953.30 | +0.32% |
| BNB | $622.59 | +0.58% |
| XRP | $1.56 | -5.45% |
| DOGE | $0.38 | +22% |
| SLP | $0.31 | -5.2% |
Bitcoin closed May 2, 2021, at $56,601 per BTC. We’re up 18% in the last 7 days and up 100% since the year began. This is also 12.66% below the all-time high of $64,804, which was hit on April 14, 2021.
Bitcoin’s market capitalization stands today at $1,083,576,020,472 which is 46% of the entire cryptocurrency market. The entire crypto market, by the way, now has a market cap of $2,345,082,547,975 (+1.1%).
On the table above, there’s the cryptocurrency SLP. If you wonder what that is, check out this article: Playing Axie Infinity vs Minimum Basic Salary in the Philippines.
Ethereum
Ether Finally Breaks Above $3k
Ether has finally breached past $3,000 and is now up 300% on a year-to-year basis. This is in comparison to Bitcoin which is up 100%. As of press time, Ether is at $3,052, the highest the second most valuable cryptocurrency has ever been.
The price of Ether is soaring just as demand for it also increases. Most of the work being done in the field of decentralized finance is done on top of the Ethereum blockchain. The total value locked in DeFi is now more than $70 billion.
According to data from CoinMetrics, the number of ETH active addresses has also reached a new all-time high of 771,000 wallets that are either at the sending or receiving end of a transaction. Speaking of transactions, daily transaction count has also increased by 22% as per Glassnode. This year alone, transaction count has totaled to 1.37 million.
The Ethereum blockchain is about to transition to 2.0, which will make the blockchain use the proof-of-stake consensus versus the current proof-of-work similar to Bitcoin.
With the recent increase in price, market research firm FundStrat maintains that the cryptocurrency will reach $10,000 this year.
“The crypto narrative is shifting from bitcoin to ethereum and other segments like DeFi (decentralized finance) and Web 3.0 apps. These applications are generating ~3x fees for the Ethereum network vs. Bitcoin, which trades at ~3x the market cap. In crypto accounting terms, this is the same as a company using revenue, less operating costs and earning profit that is used to buy back stock. This means the network would become profitable like a company once ETH supply reduction from burned fees outpaces inflation.”
MetaMask
DeFI, NFT Booms Send MetaMask Past 5 Million Active Users
MetaMask, the cryptocurrency wallet that lives as a browser or mobile wallet recently announced it has reached 5 million active users this month. For contrast, it reached the 1 million active user mark in October last year.
Along with the boom in decentralized finance, MetaMask said NFTs are also a big driver. “On-chain data clearly indicates that NFTs are being widely embraced by users across the Ethereum ecosystem. In fact, accessing NFTs is now the second most popular use case for MetaMask, only behind swaps.”
Axie Infinity
Axie Infinity’s Ronin Phase 2 is Now Live
Sky Mavis announced the launch of Phase 2 of Ronin, its Axie Infinity sidechain built to address network congestion and increasing gas fees on the Ethereum blockchain. In Phase 1, Lands and Land items were migrated to Ronin. This time, the Axies themselves can now be migrated to the sidechain.
This means the following:
- Players can now breed, buy and sell Axies on Ronin;
- AXS and SLP rewards can be claimed on Ronin
Migration to Ronin:
- Make sure to download Ronin if you haven’t;
- Migrate your Axies from the Marketplace Dashboard;
- Deposit ETH, AXS, and SLP to Ronin
Check out the tutorial below:
Read More of Our Axie Infinity Articles here:
- Playing Axie Infinity vs Minimum Basic Salary in the Philippines
- Lunacian Scholarship League Aims to Remind Players What Attracted Them to Axie Infinity in the First Place
- Jeff Zirlin | Axie Infinity | 2020 Year in Review
- Axie Infinity Names Ubisoft, Binance as Initial Validator for Ronin Sidechain
- How to Trade SLP, AXS, ETH to PHP Instantly Through BloomX
Visa
Visa Says It Will Move Into Crypto in a Very Big Way
According to Al Kelly, the CEO of Visa, the company is in an extremely good position to move forward with its crypto ambitions.
Visa is going to take a multi-pronged approach when it comes to Bitcoin, stablecoins, and even central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).
“So our focus is on five different opportunities that we see in this space and I would say that this is space that we are leaning into in a very big way and I think are extremely well-positioned,” Kelly said as reported by The Block.
Kelly said they are in discussion with central banks on how Visa can play a role in these CB’s digital currency strategies. “We’re talking to central banks about the criticality of public/private partnership and in particular the criticality of acceptance because for these central bank digital currencies to have value, they’re going to have to both be secure in the minds of consumers, and that’s something we have a long track record with and could help. And then secondly, obviously they have to have some form of utility.”
Tesla
Tesla Sold $272 Million Worth of BTC
Tesla revealed in its Q1 2021 earnings report that it sold $272 million worth of Bitcoin, listed under “proceeds from sales of digital assets.”
The Block did the math for us. Tesla bought $1.5 billion worth of BTC in February. Selling $272 million would leave at least $1.33 billion in BTC still with the electric car maker. Of course, this calculation did not take into account BTC’s price movements, but Tesla is not allowed to adjust any figure as per U.S. filing rules.
Tesla’s CFO did say they believe in the long-term value of Bitcoin. “It is our intent to hold what we have long-term and continue to accumulate Bitcoin from transactions from our customers as they purchase vehicles.”
JPMorgan
JPMorgan to Let Clients Invest in Bitcoin Fund
JPMorgan is now the latest bank to offer certain clients the option to invest in an actively managed Bitcoin Fund, which would roll out around summer, according to a report from Coindesk.
As an actively managed fund, it will be different from the “passive fare” that is currently offered by Galaxy Digital. By passive it meant the clients buy and hold Bitcoin through the fund without touching it themselves.
This makes JPMorgan the unlikeliest bank to offer something that is related to Bitcoin. Its CEO Jamie Dimon was a critic of Bitcoin and he belongs to the “blockchain, not Bitcoin” crowd.
Binance
Binance Launches NFT Marketplace
Cryptocurrency exchange Binance announces its plans to launch its own NFT marketplace on June 2021. The exchange said in a press release that it aims to create an NFT platform with minimal fees, high liquidity, and featuring high value collectibles in all forms, such as art, music, games, sports, and metaverses.
For a primer on Non-Fungible Tokens, check out our article: Non-Fungible Tokens – NFT 101 – Why People are Spending Millions of Dollars for Crypto Art and Digital Items
The landing page is already up, allowing artists and creators to get in touch now. Binance plans to launch a mobile version of its NFT marketplace soon.
Users already on Binance will not have trouble accessing the NFT marketplace because it will have the same account system as Binance.com. That means if you are already on the exchange platform, you are able to access the NFT marketplace and trade with your current funds on Binance.com.
What else is happening
- Uranium Finance developer suspected of ‘leaking’ information leading to $50M exploit
- Alchemy raises $80M to power the NFT boom as the ‘AWS of blockchain’
- ‘Damn Huge’: Germany Opens Up to Institutional Crypto Funds
- Kurt Cobain’s Final Nirvana Photoshoot to be Released as NFTs
- Binance Smart Chain: Q1 2021 Overview
- Brian Brooks plots ambitious path to take Binance.US out of Asian crypto giant’s shadow
- Goldman Sachs Says Blockchain Stocks on Average Outperform S&P 500 (But Not Bitcoin)
- Polygon’s Ethereum Scaling Project Is Never Complete: Sandeep Nailwal
- Turkey’s Cryptomania Hits Home With Losses, Arrests, Manhunt
- The Last Days of Satoshi: What Happened When Bitcoin’s Creator Disappeared
This article is published on BitPinas: Weekly Wrap-up: Ether Breaks Past $3K – New All Time High (May 3, 2021)
