Market Wrap: Ether Hits New High, Outperforms Bitcoin as Altcoins Rally

 ETH is up about 11% over the past week, compared to a 3% rise in BTC over the same period.

Ether, the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, reached a new all-time price high of around $4,400 on Friday, topping the previous record high of $4,379 in May, according to CoinDesk data.

ETH is up about 11% over the past week, compared to a 3% rise in BTC over the same period. Technical charts indicate further upside for ether relative to bitcoin, with an upside target toward 0.08 in the ETH/BTC price ratio as discussed in yesterday’s Market Wrap.

Overall, analysts expect further upside for cryptocurrencies for the remainder of the year despite occasional pullbacks, which can lead to choppy trading conditions.

“Bitcoin and major altcoins are experiencing strong volatility on the intraday chart, which is normal at all-time-high levels, like we have seen lately,” Lukas Enzersdorfer-Konrad, Bitpanda chief product officer, wrote in an email to CoinDesk.

“The last negative days failed to damage the overall market structure, and fundamentals further indicate that the long term remains decisively bullish,” Enzersdorfer-Konrad wrote.

Latest prices :

- Bitcoin (BTC): $62,346, +1.70%

- Ether (ETH): $4,394, +3.08%

- S&P 500: $4,605, +0.19%

- Gold: $1,782, -0.97%

- 10-year Treasury yield closed at 1.55%

The great rotation

Despite recent volatility, some traders are starting to position for further upside in alternative cryptocurrencies (altcoins) such as ether.

“Lately, there has been an increasing number of conversations among investors around shifting portfolio allocations from bitcoin to altcoins to capture the higher returns alts have provided during more speculative risk-on periods,” FundStrat, a global advisory firm, wrote in a Thursday newsletter.

“The good news (for BTC and ETH price) is that the tides appear to be shifting towards a more risk-on fall in traditional markets,” FundStrat wrote.

Ether’s record high

Ether’s new price high coincided with improving blockchain data. The smart-contract Ethereum blockchain burned more tokens than it emitted in the last 24 hours, thanks partly to strong action in shiba inu (SHIB), CoinDesk’s Omkar Godbole reported.

Shiba Inu, the platform behind the self-proclaimed dogecoin killer, burnt 770.12 ETH, becoming the third-largest ETH destroyer. Uniswap v.2 and Tether destroyed 2,729.22 and 1,248.72 ETH, respectively.

And some options traders are betting U.S. regulators will soon approve an ether futures-based exchange-traded fund (ETF) and so are buying cheap out-of-the-money calls in anticipation of a price rally.

High network demand

The chart below shows the recent rise in the Ethereum gas price, which refers to the cost of performing transactions on the blockchain network.

“Historically, when gas gets expensive, we’ve seen activity spike on alternative L1s [layer 1]. But now that Arbitrum and Optimism are live, L2s [layer two] could wind up being the primary beneficiaries,” crypto research firm Delphi Digital wrote in a blog post.

Altcoin roundup

- Decentraland’s MANA surged 80% in 24h: MANA, Decentraland’s native token, surged 80% in one day to a market capitalization of more than $2 billion, CoinDesk’s Lyllah Ledesma reported. This comes after Facebook’s announcement on Thursday afternoon that the company changed its corporate name to Meta to signal an increasing focus on the metaverse, which apparently spurred the jump.

- Here’s why a CryptoPunk sold for $530 million: A Twitter bot that tracks sales of CryptoPunks flagged a transaction that showed the sale of one CryptoPunk non-fungible token (NFT) for a staggering half-billion dollars, CoinDesk’s Andrew Thurman reported. But while the purchase would’ve been one of the largest art sales in history, on-chain analysts were quick to point out the sale was just a clever bit of smart contract magic.

- XRP gets wrapped by Tokensoft for Ethereum DeFi debut: Tokensoft’s Wrapped is taking a multi-custodial approach by partnering with Hex Trust on wXRP, CoinDesk’s Ian Allison reported. The new connectivity for XRP holders will allow access to various DeFi applications, whether that’s lending, borrowing or for use in automated market makers, CEO of Tokensoft Mason Borda said. Wrapped has previously wrapped a number of tokens, including bitcoin, zcash, filecoin and others.

Source : Damanick Dantes, Helene Braun/coindesk.com

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Ether Reaches Record High of Over $4.4K as Shiba Inu Becomes a Leading ETH Burner

 Coin burning refers to the process of removing tokens from circulation and is the crypto market’s equivalent of a stock buyback.

Ether (ETH) clocked a new all-time high on Friday as blockchain data showed that smart-contract blockchain Ethereum burned more tokens than it emitted in the last 24 hours, thanks partly to strong action in shiba inu (SHIB).

The native token of Ethereum’s blockchain rose to $4,402 during Asian hours, topping the previous record high of $4,379 reached in May, according to CoinDesk data.

At the going price of $4,370, the cryptocurrency is up 45% on a month-to-date basis versus bitcoin’s 40% gain. The ether-bitcoin implied volatility spread is rising in a sign that the market expects ether to continue leading the price action in the coming weeks, as Thursday’s First Mover newsletter mentioned.

Data tracked by Tokenview shows Ethereum produced 15,109.34 ETH and burned 16,710.2 ETH in the past 24 hours. That’s a net supply reduction of 1,600 ETH.

Shiba Inu, the platform behind the self-proclaimed dogecoin killer, burnt 770.12 ETH, becoming the third-largest ETH destroyer. Uniswap v.2 and Tether destroyed 2,729.22 and 1,248.72 ETH, respectively.

SHIB has rallied a staggering 800% this month, hitting a record high of $0.00008870. According to Defi Llama, the total value locked in ShibaSwap, a decentralized exchange that allows users to stake SHIB, has doubled to $512 million this month.

Coin burning refers to the process of removing tokens from circulation and is the crypto market’s equivalent of a stock buyback.

The Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 1559 implemented on Aug. 5 EIP 1559, burns a portion of fees paid to the miners, removing a notable chunk of coins from circulation. The upgrade has tied the amount of ether burned with the network usage.

Since activation, the upgrade has destroyed 668,339 ETH, representing over 50% of the new coins issued over the same period.

Some options traders are betting that U.S. regulators would soon approve a futures-based exchange-traded fund (ETF) and are buying cheap out-of-the-money calls in anticipation of a price rally. Data tracked by Laevitas shows the ETH $15,000 call expiring in March has drawn strong demand in recent days.

Source : Omkar Godbole/coindesk.com

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Polygon Launches Unit to Grow Blockchain Gaming, NFTs

 The Ethereum-scaling project has acquainted Polygon Studios with "overcome any barrier between Web 2 and Web 3 gaming." 

Polygon has dispatched Polygon Studios, zeroed in on assisting with progressing blockchain gaming and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). 

The Ethereum-scaling project said Monday the new unit will "overcome any barrier between Web 2 and Web 3 gaming." 

The division will hope to draw in huge brands and establishments hoping to dispatch games and NFTs. 

Polygon says it as of now has in excess of 100,000 gamers and more than 500 decentralized applications, including gaming ventures, for example, Aavegotichi, Decentraland and Skyweaver, and NFT commercial center OpenSea. 

Polygon Gaming Studio intends to assist designers with making blockchain-empowered gaming, while Polygon NFT Studio will help the improvement of custom NFT models and commercial centers. 

Polygon has achieved a lot of prominence among engineers trying to get away from the high exchange expenses on the Ethereum mainnet and in May pulled in an undisclosed venture from extremely rich person financial backer Mark Cuban.

Source : Jamie Crawley/coindesk.com

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USDC Stablecoin Backed by Multiple Assets, Circle Said

 Crypto's No. 2 stablecoin is sponsored generally – 61% – with money and money counterparts. This is what involves the rest. 

Most of Circle's USDC (0%) stablecoin is supported by U.S. dollars, the organization uncovered on Tuesday. 

Circle, a worldwide installments organization, was one of USDC's makers. It distributed a breakdown of its resources backing the stablecoin without precedent for its most recent authentication report, which was dated July 16. As per the report, about 61% of its tokens are sponsored by "money and money counterparts," which means money and currency market reserves. 

Yankee Certificates of Deposit – which means CDs gave by unfamiliar (non-U.S.) banks – involve a further 13%, U.S. Depositories represent 12%, business paper represents 9%, and the excess tokens are sponsored by metropolitan and corporate securities. 

The organization has given about $22.2 billion worth of USDC, as indicated by the verification. 

It's indistinct what, explicitly, Circle has put resources into to back USDC. The organization means to open up to the world not long from now in a consolidation with a specific reason securing organization that would esteem Circle at $4.5 billion. 

As per references in Tuesday's authentication, the business paper has a "base S&P rating of S/T A1," which means S&P Global Ratings respects the backer's capacity to meet its monetary commitments as being solid. 

Circle joins Tether in distributing a harsh breakdown of its resource saves, essentially in part responding to inquiries concerning whether its stablecoin is completely upheld. Like Circle, Tether additionally utilizes business paper to back its USDT (+0.04%) token, however business paper represents undeniably a greater amount of Tether's stores than Circle's does.

Source : Nikhilesh De/coindesk.com

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Bitcoin payments accepted by Las Vegas Strip Club

 The club is just tolerating bitcoin installments for bottle administration yet has plans to grow exchanges to food, affirmation, among others. 

A strip club in Las Vegas is venturing out in tolerating bitcoin (BTC, - 1.94%) installments over the Lightning Network in a bid to accelerate installments, lower costs and give some genuinely necessary security to customers. 

Insane Horse 3, which names itself a "honorable men's club," says it has become the principal significant diversion setting in the rich desert garden to acknowledge installment utilizing Lightning. 

Bitcoin installment processor and foundation supplier OpenNode is directing the club's new installment rail, which empowers visitors to make buys through the club's site. 

The inquiry, some may ask, is the reason? 

Bitcoin's Lightning Network is a layer-two convention arrangement intended to settle exchanges off-tie in a bid to chop down the time it takes to execute on the planet's most established cryptographic money just as diminish the charges related. 

At the point when Bitcoin was first disclosed to the world back in 2009, the capacity to settle seven exchanges each second (TPS) appeared, at that point, fine and dandy. Presently as the organization and number of clients have developed, so too has the interest on Bitcoin's foundation. 

The Lightning Network endeavors to tackle that interest by expanding the greatest throughput to 25 million TPS. This is a significant factor for a spot like Crazy Horse 3 hoping to use bitcoin's developing appropriation as a type of installment. 

Lightning additionally offers an additional layer of exchange security; for example, its hubs use Tor's mysterious correspondence network known as onion steering. The directing bears the cost of hubs the capacity to send exchanges through one another while keeping the bitcoin executed encoded. 

"We are accepting the chance to acknowledge Bitcoin as an approach to convey comfort, top notch friendliness and an additional degree of namelessness for our visitors," said a delegate for Crazy Horse 3 in an explanation. 

Security in the grown-up amusement business, as it's been said, is sacred. 

How might this benefit the Horse? 

Found a short distance from the new Allegiant Stadium, Crazy Horse 3 isn't actually concealed. However, as most grown-up diversion organizations, the club faces monetary judgment through being marked a "high-hazard" industry. 

All things considered, expenses to installment handling organizations through customary rails are higher. Then again, those expenses charged by utilizing bitcoin as a type of installment are fundamentally lower. 

Bitcoin installments can be especially helpful to global customers flying into Las Vegas since they don't have to utilize their charge/Visas to make quick installments. 

Up until this point, the club is just tolerating bitcoin installments for bottle administration, however it has plans to grow exchanges to incorporate "affirmation, food determinations, make mixed drinks, retail and the club's mark "dance dollars," substantial toward lap moves and performer tipping." 

Tipping is the place where the Lightning Network can possibly really have an effect. Under the states of protection, lower charges, and quicker installments, the capacity to pay performers in satoshis or "sats" – parts of an entire bitcoin – those on the less than desirable end can fashion totally new neighborhood economies. 

Onchain bitcoin microtransactions would be restrictively sluggish and costly. Yet, installments on Lightning are undeniably made in more modest augmentations, on the money for tips. Include the additional degree of protection and it's not difficult to perceive any reason why Crazy Horse 3 is keen on growing its Lightning Network capacities.

Source : Sebastian Sinclair/coindesk.com

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