Are we experiencing an ETH bull market?
The world’s second largest cryptocurrency is getting ready for the next step. ETH is currently worth around $3,400, bringing its market value to over $320 billion. At the end of last year, Ethereum launched its Kintsugi test network, which is to be integrated into the Ethereum Mainnet and the Beacon Chain in Q2 of this year. In this merger, experts smell great opportunities for the cryptocurrency, as it is a long hoped-for improvement to the Ether network. As we have reported, the blockchain is expected to move from PoW to Proof-of-Stake, making it faster, more energy efficient and cheaper. An immense energy saving of 99.95% is expected, which could also make Ethereum socially acceptable for environmentally critical circles. Ethereum 2.0 aims to create an efficient and scalable blockchain.
Please be patient
If everything works as planned, things will get really exciting in 1 to 2 months: In May or June of this year, the new function Sharding should improve scalability – the result will be fast transactions and lower fees. This means that the performance of currently 15 transactions per second (TPS) can be increased by a factor of 64 in the future. As soon as the test phase is completed and everything is running stably, the changeover will take place.
What sounds promising must first prove itself in practice. However, if the expectations of the new technology are fulfilled, this could further boost the ETH share price. In the previous year, the cryptocurrency already caught up rapidly with Bitcoin – if the technology conversion succeeds, it will probably continue in this direction. For about a month now, the price of ETH has been rising steadily, from around 2,600 dollars to more than 3,400 dollars within the last month. The end is uncertain – according to estimates by Bill Barhydt, co-founder and CEO of Abra, the price of the cryptocurrency could rise to 30,000 to 40,000 US dollars.
A rock in the storm
The current geopolitical crisis seems to have little effect on Ethereum. Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin even sees it as an opportunity and believes that it is precisely in the crisis that the wheat is separated from the chaff, for which he sees Ethereum well positioned. Regardless of his optimism, the last few weeks seem to prove him right. Arthur Hayes also sees opportunities for Ethereum to increase significantly in value. For him, Ethereum is a commodity that powers the world’s largest decentralised computer and is therefore an ideal store of value and inflation hedge.
This is also supported by Ethereum’s role as the world’s largest smart contract platform, which forms a multi-layered ecosystem of decentralised applications ranging from decentralised exchanges to NFT marketplaces. For investors, at least, these prospects have made ETH much more attractive.