Ethereum prices surged during Monday morning’s Asian trading session. The asset touched a new all-time high price just below $1,500.
The 14% gain since yesterday’s open makes Ethereum one of the top performing digital assets at the moment. According to TradingView, ETH reached an all-time high of $1,480 after lifting off a few hours ago.
Ethereum prices have now doubled since the beginning of 2021, and are up almost 800% since the same time last year. At the time of writing, ETH was trading for $1,410 after a slight pullback.
The move did not go unnoticed by industry leaders such as Binance;
OKEx CEO, Jay Hao, commented that maturing Layer-2 solutions could be driving Ethereum adoption;
“New ETH ATH again. #Ethereum’s universe is rapidly expanding thanks to DeFi’s explosive growth & the maturing L2 solutions. Contenders need to start thinking about how to best navigate this new universe soon. My bet would be on high performance & cross-chain interconnectivity.”
The Earning Game for Ethereum
Industry observer, Lark Davis, noticed that Ethereum kept on exchanges has reached a fifteen-month low which could lead to further price increases;
Other metrics such as Google searches and mining difficulty for Ethereum have also surged to new highs as reported by BeInCrypto.
The moving of Ethereum off exchanges is likely to be related to staking on ETH 2.0 and liquidity provisions in DeFi protocols. There are currently 2.82 million ETH staked on the Beacon Chain contract according to the ETH 2.0 Launchpad. At current prices, this is worth an estimated $4 billion. The annual percentage yield in ETH for stakers is currently around 9.3%
In terms of DeFi, there are around 7 million ETH locked across various protocols according to DeFi Pulse. Between this and the staked amount, 8.6% of the entire supply of Ethereum is squirreled away earning. Just like Bitcoin, investors are now holding on to their Ethereum rather than flipping it for a quick profit.
Gas Squeeze Continues
The price peak has increased the average transaction prices again, which are now up to around $9.30 according to BitInfoCharts. The highest it has ever been was over $16 on Jan. 11, but the trend is definitely up and gas is unlikely to get cheaper this year.
Gains in value will likely outweigh any transaction costs at the moment as everyone that has ever bought Ethereum will be in profit right now. Nonetheless, the urgency to deploy gas-saving solutions such as EIP 1559 is greater than ever.
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