ETH’s weekly gains currently stand at a near even 0.5%.
- Ethereum’s year-to-date profits lay at over 350% currently.
- adidas has become the latest multinational to get onboard the NFT, metaverse train.
- The total volume of ETH locked within the global DeFi ecosystem currently stands at a whopping AUD$250 billion approximately (US$177 billion).
After continuing to flirt with a new all-time high over the past week, on 3 December Ethereum dipped to a relative low of AUD$6,300 only to rise once again. At press time, the premier altcoin is trading for $6,410.
Also, just a few days ago, ETH scaled up to a new 2021 high against Bitcoin, bringing the asset’s year-to-date (YTD) profits to over the 350% mark. After having bottomed out in October, ETH has been on an uptrend, carving out a value retracement of more than 40%. Additionally, the ETH/BTC price rally goes to show that despite the prevailing bearish sentiment, Ethereum’s adoption as a smart contract platform has continued to increase.
Since the start of the year, ETH has firmly cemented its position as a leading asset within a number of sectors, namely non-fungible tokens (NFT), decentralised finance (DeFi) and the Metaverse. Since a vast majority of the platforms operating within these domains require ETH to run their smart contracts, demand for the altcoin has been going up despite its transactional woes, such as gas fees remaining at a sizable US$45.
NFT mania shows no signs of slowing down
On 2 November, fintech firm Defiance revealed that it had officially launched its first NFT-focused exchange-traded fund (ETF) which is now listed on the NYSE under the ticker NFTZ. The offering is extremely unique but does not buy or store NFTs in wallets. However, it keeps track of an index related to firms operating within this niche’s realm as well as other budding tech spaces such as the Metaverse. Some of the fund’s holdings consist of Coinbase, Cloudflare, Marathon Digital and Hut 8, among others.
In another big announcement, multinational giant adidas announced its entry into the Metaverse via its collaboration with a number of prominent projects such as Bored Ape Yacht Club, Gmoney NFT and PUNKS Comic. A statement from the firm read:
“The Metaverse is where anyone can express their most original ideas and be their most authentic selves, in whatever form they might take. And thanks to the blockchain [and NFTs], those pioneers can own a piece of what they create.”
Looking ahead
After ETH came within 2% of reaching a new ATH, news of increased regulation across the global crypto landscape seems to have dampened investor sentiment. That said, the Ethereum network’s DeFi total value locked (TVL) has continued to increase, currently standing at an impressive US$177 billion. Even the total volume of ETH staked on the beacon chain hit an all-time high of 8.45 million tokens earlier this month, up 4.5% from November. It will be interesting to see how things pan out for the altcoin over the next few months.
Interested in cryptocurrency? Learn more about the basics with our beginner’s guide to Bitcoin, dive deeper by learning about Ethereum and see what blockchain can do with our simple guide to DeFi.
Disclosure: The author owns a range of cryptocurrencies at the time of writing.
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