ETH

Study Shows Cross-Chain Bridge Technology Growth, Bridges to Ethereum Exceed $7 Billion

16/09/2021 by Idelto Editor

On September 8, 2021, Dmitriy Berenzon, research partner at 1kxnetwork, an early-stage crypto fund that helps founders bootstrap token networks, published a comprehensive research post concerning blockchain bridges. Berenzon’s study highlights the current “multi-chain market structure” and bridges that are making a myriad of blockchains compatible.

Researcher: ‘We Are Finally in a Multi-Chain Market Structure’

For quite some time now, multi-chain or cross-chain technology has been a holy grail of sorts in the cryptocurrency development space. People want to transact with other blockchains by leveraging bridges to different ecosystems.

Dmitriy Berenzon published a detailed article about the subject of cross-chain tech and bridges, and he believes we’ve finally reached a watershed moment. “After years of research & development, we are finally in a multi-chain market structure,” Berenzon stresses in his blog post.

Study Shows Cross-Chain Bridge Technology Growth, Bridges to Ethereum Exceed $7 Billion — Image of bridge technology “as of September 8, 2021; Illustrative / Not fully comprehensive,” according to research partner at 1kxnetwork, Dmitriy Berenzon.

Berenzon’s study looks at blockchains like Ethereum, Solana, Tezos, Avalanche, Polkadot, Binance Smart Chain, Cosmos, and more. The researcher notes that “interoperability unlocks innovation” as he highlights that “bridges are important because they enable users to access new platforms, protocols to interoperate with each other, and developers to collaborate on building new products.”

Moreover, Berenzon lists the many benefits of cross-chain interoperability like leveraging the tech for external validators and federations. Also, using the tech for light clients and relay protocols alongside the ability to access liquidity networks.

However, Berenzon’s report is not just a fluff piece about fintech, and he highlights that cross-chain tech and bridges are an “incredibly difficult problem in distributed systems.” He adds that things like finality and rollbacks need to be addressed, NFT transfers and provenance, alongside stress testing these blockchain bridges over time.

$7.7 Billion Locked Across 8 Bridges to Ethereum

In addition to Berenzon’s insights, statistics from Dune Analytics’ dashboard called “Bridge Away” measure bridge volume tethered to the various chains and Ethereum. In terms of Ethereum bridge relative total value locked (TVL) stats, the Polygon ERC20 Bridge has approximately $2.4 billion in TVL on September 16, 2021.

Polygon’s bridge represents 32.5% of the TVL across eight bridges. The bridges recorded include the Polygon ERC20 Bridge, Arbitrum Bridges, Avalanche Bridge, Solana Wormhole, Fantom Anyswap Bridge, Harmony Bridges, Optimism ERC20 Bridges, and Near Rainbow Bridge.

Across all of these bridges mentioned, there’s $7.79 billion TVL spread across 42,997 unique addresses during the last 30 days. Arbitrum Bridges command 31.5% of the aggregate TVL and the Avalanche Bridge has around 21.2% today.

Solana Wormhole’s TVL is about 6.7% and the Fantom Anyswap Bridge has around 6.6% of the $7.79 billion TVL. Ether and WETH are the top assets held in TVL with $2.9 billion recorded on September 16. USDC is the second leading asset held in bridge TVL with $1.2 billion recorded. This is followed by wrapped bitcoin (WBTC) which has just over a billion dollars held in the overall bridge TVL aggregate total.

What do you think about multi-chain or cross-chain bridge technology and the expanding TVL held by these protocols? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Ethereum After 1559: Network Participants Burn Over 300,000 Ether Worth More Than $1 Billion

16/09/2021 by Idelto Editor

On August 5, 2021, the Ethereum network and its participants successfully completed the highly anticipated London upgrade, which saw the implementation of the Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP)-1559. Since then, 303,681 ether worth more than a billion U.S. dollars have been burned.

More Than 300K Ether Burned Following EIP-1559

More than a billion dollars worth of ethereum (ETH) has been burned to date, after the London upgrade was implemented 42 days ago. The biggest changes added to the Ethereum blockchain included EIP-1559 and EIP-3554. While EIP-3554 changed the difficulty bomb, EIP-1559 changed Ethereum’s fee rate to a new scheme that makes the crypto asset ether deflationary.

Essentially, fees are standardized and calculated based on network demand, as a transaction pricing mechanism introduces a base fee for every block found on the network. The remainder of the fees will be burned and ether proponents assume this will significantly reduce the overall supply of ethereum. As of today, September 16, 2021, the Ethereum network has burned 303,681 ether worth over $1 billion using Thursday’s ether exchange rates.

Opensea Still Largest Burner, Stablecoin Transfers Add to the Burn Pile

The biggest burners in the network are people transferring ether from one address to another and decentralized applications (dapps) and decentralized finance (defi) platforms as well. The largest ether burner today is the non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace Opensea as Dune Analytics stats show the market has burned 42,991 ether worth $146.1 million today. Opensea is followed by traditional ether transfers which have added 25,514 ether to the burn pile.

Uniswap V2 and the stablecoin project Tether (USDT) command the third and fourth positions in terms of the top ether burners. To date, the second version of the Uniswap decentralized exchange (dex) has burned 16,665 ether worth $55.8K. Tether’s stablecoin USDT has added 15,015 ether to the burn pile as it is responsible for burning $51 million. Other top burners include Axie Infinity, Uniswap V3, Metamask, the stablecoin project USDC, and Opensea’s registry.

What do you think about the 303,681 ether worth over $1 billion burned? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Bitcoin Price Dive-Bombs on the Same Day El Salvador Adopts the Crypto Asset

07/09/2021 by Idelto Editor

After touching a high of $52,956 on Monday evening, the very next day the price of bitcoin slid to a low of $42,900 at around 11 a.m. (EST). Bitcoin is currently trading for prices between $46K-$47K per unit and down 8% during the last 24 hours.

Bitcoin Price Slides Significantly After Nearing $53K

Crypto advocates watched bitcoin tumble in a very short period of time down to $42,900 per BTC on September 7, 2021. The drop was on the same day El Salvador adopted bitcoin (BTC) as legal tender in the country.

Hovering between the $46K to $47K handle, BTC’s overall market capitalization is $890 billion at the time of writing. There’s $60 billion in global trade volume across a myriad of cryptocurrency trading platforms worldwide.

Bitcoin Price Dive-Bombs on the Same Day El Salvador Adopts the Crypto Asset — BTC/USD at 12:30 p.m. (EST).

BTC is down more than 8% at the time of writing, and many other digital currency markets also saw significant drops in fiat value on Tuesday. The entire market economy of 10,000+ crypto assets slid over 9% collectively to a low of $2.21 trillion.

Ethereum (ETH) slid 9.3% and cardano (ADA) dropped by 10.3% on Tuesday morning. Neo (NEO), zcash (ZEC), and eos (EOS) were the biggest losers during the dip seeing double digit losses. Horizen (ZEN), qtum (QTUM), filecoin (FIL) lost double digits during the slide as well.

Coins that were barely affected by the drop in value included crypto assets like fantom (FTM), near (NEAR), and solana (SOL). All three of these crypto-assets saw double-digit 24-hour returns despite the swift drop across crypto markets.

At the time of writing, there’s $242 billion in 24-hour volume across the whole crypto economy and tether (USDT) captures $122 billion of that volume at press time. Across the board, stablecoins of all flavors saw a lot more volume on Tuesday than prior days.

For now, BTC remains consolidated in the $46K-$47K region and crypto supporters are uncertain as to what will take place next.

Of course, as bitcoin prices plummeted, the economist and gold bug Peter Schiff had to throw in his two cents about El Salvador adopting bitcoin.

“Welcome to Bitcoin El Salvador,” Schiff said. “Your national ‘currency’ just lost over 15% of its purchasing power in under an hour. Get used to it. Just another perfectly orchestrated pump-and-dump by the Bitcoin whales. Too bad this time they had to sacrifice an entire nation to pull it off,” he added.

What do you think about bitcoin’s price dropping on the same day El Salvador adopted bitcoin as legal tender? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

ETH 2.0 Contract Exceeds 7.4 Million Ether, Close to $30 Billion Locked, Liquid Staking Pools Grow

06/09/2021 by Idelto Editor

The Ethereum 2.0 contract now has more than 7.4 million ether worth over $29.3 billion using today’s ether exchange rates. According to statistics, the smart contract address is the largest holder of ethereum out of all the wallets in existence.

Ethereum 2.0 Contract Nears $30 Billion

In the early days, the Ethereum (ETH) protocol was a 100% proof-of-work (PoW) blockchain but in more recent times, Ethereum is now a mix of proof-of-stake (PoS) and PoW. In time, the digital currency and smart contract network will be 100% PoS and this will be the main consensus algorithm that keeps Ethereum chugging along.

On November 6, 2020, Bitcoin.com News reported on the co-creator of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, adding $1.4 million worth of ether into the Phase 0 smart contract. Since then, the ETH 2.0 contract has swelled significantly. In July 2021, Bitcoin.com News reported on the Ethereum 2.0 contract exceeding six million ether. At the time on July 2, the six million ether was worth $12.4 billion using exchange rates from that day.

Today, according to Etherscan statistics, the Eth2 Deposit Contract holds 7,489,474 ether worth $29,366,901,606. The smart contract address is the largest wallet among the Ethereum rich list of wallets. The Wrapped Ether smart contract address is fairly close, however, with 6.9 million ether.

Ever since Buterin deposited the massive amount of ether he held into the ETH 2.0 contract address, deposits of 32 ETH are continuously deposited to this very day. In order to be a validator, 32 ether is required to join the ETH 2.0 staking community.

Behind the ETH 2.0 contract and Wrapped Ether wallet, includes wallets owned by Binance, Kraken, Gemini, Huobi, FTX exchange, and a few unknown ether billionaires. The ETH 2.0 smart contract has seen 150,980 transactions to date and the 7.4 million ether equals 6.37% of the entire circulating supply of ether.

1.3 Million Ether Is Locked in Liquid Staking Pools

A lot of the ETH 2.0 money locked in to the contract is being staked in prominent staking pools like Lido, Stkr, SharedStake, Stafi, Stakewise, Cream and Stakehound. These pool services have approximately 1,361,463 ether locked and Lido has the lion’s share of ether.

The Lido liquid staking pool has around 1,167,007 ether staking today, according to Dune Analytics stats. $5.35 billion of the overall $29.3 billion locked is being staked by large pools and that’s about 18.09% of the 7.4 million ether today.

In addition to the 7.4 million ether locked, to date, 216,229 ether has been burned after EIP-1559 was implemented. Using today’s exchange rates, that’s $729 million worth of the second-leading crypto asset by market capitalization.

What do you think about the 7.4 million in ether worth more than $29 billion locked into the Ethereum 2.0 contract? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Bitcoin Quickly Jumps Above the $52K Zone Only to Get Pushed Back, Crypto Economy Climbs 3.5%

06/09/2021 by Idelto Editor

Bitcoin surpassed the $52K handle on Monday morning, as crypto-asset markets have been moving northbound and gathering more fiat value. The overall crypto economy is around $2.45 trillion and it has gained 3.5% during the last 24 hours. Meanwhile, bitcoin charts show a pending golden crossover which to many means the overall market outlook looks bullish.

Bitcoin Hits Resistance Above the $52K Handle

Digital asset markets are in the green today and many crypto assets have seen single to double-digit gains during the last 24 hours. At the time of writing, the entire crypto-economy of 10,000+ cryptos in existence is around $2.45 trillion on Monday. Bitcoin (BTC) has gained more than 3.5% today and 6.3% during the last seven days. On Monday morning (EST), BTC surpassed the $52K zone reaching $52,230 per unit. Many assume BTC’s next few months will be bullish and a pending golden cross chart signal indicates this may be the case.

Bitcoin (BTC) tapped a high of $52,230 on Monday, but has since regressed back to the $51K range.

Basically, when the short-term moving average jumps over the long-term moving average and starts moving northbound, traders call it a golden cross and assume an upward trend is coming. “On Friday, BTC broke through the resistance of $50,500, paused for the weekend, and exceeded $51,500 on Monday, where it is now struggling to hold on,” Fxpro senior financial analyst Alex Kuptsikevich told Bitcoin.com News.

“Actually, Bitcoin has been trading above $50,000 since last week as the bulls managed to keep the rate above the 200-day moving average. In light of this, the price of ‘over fifty’ has become quite common over the past few days,” Kuptsikevich added. The analyst further stressed:

Anchoring above this mark will open the way to $60,000 and may become a catalyst for a fully-fledged reversal of the crypto market.

Ethereum Closing in on All-Time Highs, Myriad of Other Cryptos See Double-Digit Gains

Meanwhile, ethereum (ETH) is only up 0.3% today but over the last week, ether has gained 22.2%. ETH hit a high above the $4K handle on September 1, but has been below that region since then. Simon Peters, Etoro’s crypto-asset analyst, says ether is headed toward all-time price highs.

“Ether is closing in on all-time highs while bitcoin has reached above $50,000 for the first time since mid-May,” Peters said. “ETH surged in the last week, coming close to breaching the $4,000 level. The crypto asset began the week below $3,200 but rose quickly through the week, reaching $3,981 by Friday. Over the weekend gains have flattened but remain trading in this range,” he added. The Etoro crypto analyst continued:

A confluence of factors is contributing to the rising price of ETH. ETH burning, staking, gas fees, transactions, and locked away tokens on defi are all working in concert to support price levels. BTC meanwhile has hit above $50,000 for the first time since mid-May. The crypto asset started the week with falls to below $47,000 before rallying midweek above $50,000. In early trading today BTC has surged again, closing in on $52,000.

As bitcoin and ethereum have seen some gains and of course attention, a number of other crypto-assets have seen better returns over the last 24 hours. Coins like quant, omg network, filecoin, ftx token, fantom, qtum, chainlink, mdex, bitcoin cash, and EOS have all seen double-digit 24-hour gains.

What do you think about bitcoin and the rest of the crypto economy’s recent improvements? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.