Ethereum price at $1,480: a record high
The week begins with new records: the first hours of the day record a new all-time high for the price of Ethereum, which reaches $1,480 for the first time. Since the beginning of the year, Ethereum has risen almost 100%, leaving behind the excellent performance of Bitcoin Pro, which has gained around 20% since January 1 at current levels.
Ethereum’s good performance was already evident with last week’s positive close, unlike Bitcoin which closed the week in the red for the second time in a row, as it hasn’t done in 10 months.
Ethereum drags DeFi tokens down
Ethereum’s rise is dragging behind the rest of the altcoins, although the week is starting with alternating positive and negative signs. There is a substantial balance among the biggies.
In addition to Ethereum, the best rise among the blue chips is Uniswap (UNI) which is up more than 17%. The token of the main decentralised exchange most widely used by users exceeded $13 for the first time since its launch last September. It is a rise that now characterises the entire token sector of the decentralised finance ecosystem.
Today, it is these tokens that are jumping onto the podium of the best. Uniswap is followed by Icon (ICX), Compound (COMP), Bancor (BNT), Algorand (ALGO) and Aave, all with double-digit gains of just over 10%.
The rise in recent hours has failed to bring the market cap back above $1 trillion and Bitcoin’s difficulty in recent days has caused dominance to fall to 62%, the lowest level since late November. In contrast, Ethereum runs above 16.5%, its highest level in two and a half years (August 2018). XRP on the other hand continues to move at 1.25 market share, lowest levels in years.
Volumes in the last 24 hours see a general increase, around $360 billion, although far from the peaks of the beginning of the month. In the last 24 hours, Ethereum exchanges exploded with over 8 billion traded, more than 30% of the volumes traded by Bitcoin in the same time frame.
DeFi’s total value locked benefits from what is happening and rises above $26 billion for the first time
Maker leads the sector at one step above $5 billion, followed by Aave, while in third position the head-to-head between Compound and Uniswap continues.
The number of blocked ETHs remains stable at last week’s levels, with just over 7 million tokens blocked, while the number of tokenized BTCs continues to grow, at over 40,000, the highest level since mid-December.
