Ether is holding above $2,000 after it reached an 11-month high on Sunday of $2,141. The cryptocurrency’s upward movement comes after the Ethereum blockchain’s Shanghai software upgrade last week, although Simon Peters, an analyst at investment firm eToro, wrote in a morning note that the reaction to the upgrade was largely muted and that ether’s price jump was more of a response to macroeconomic conditions. Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market value, lost 2% in the past 24 hours to fall below $30,000. Layer 1 network Avalanche’s AVAX led gains on Monday, up 7% in the past 24 hours. Last week, financial institutions T. Rowe Price, WisdomTree, Wellington Management and Cumberland joined Avalanche’s “subnet” called “Spruce” to make trade execution and settlements more efficient.
Ether’s 24-hour price chart
Basketball legend Shaquille O’Neal has been served in a class-action lawsuit against FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, a law firm for the plaintiffs tweeted on Sunday. “Plaintiffs in the billion $ FTX class action case just served @SHAQ outside his house,” a law firm led by Adam Moskowitz tweeted. Dubbed “Shaqtoshi” in an FTX commercial, O’Neal is one of several celebrities, including “Shark Tank” host Kevin O’Leary, football star Tom Brady and basketball player Steph Curry who are facing a class-action lawsuit for promoting a “fraudulent scheme.” When crypto exchange FTX had collapsed O’Neal had said “I was just a paid spokesperson for a commercial.”
Bitcoin is closely following its early 2019 surge and its price could peak at around $45,000 next month, according to Vetle Lunde, a senior analyst at K33 Research. The cryptocurrency has soared 80% this year, beating traditional risky assets, including the tech-heavy Nasdaq index, by a wide margin. The rally comes after a 12-month decline when prices fell 76% and bottomed out in November 2022. The drop and subsequent recovery are analogous to the pattern seen in the 2018-19 bear market in terms of length and trajectory, according to Lunde. “Bottoms in both cycles lasted for approximately 370 days. And the peak-to-trough return after 510 days of both cycles reached 60%,” Lunde said in a note sent to clients last week. “In 2018, the bear market rally topped 556 days after the 2017 peak, on June 29, 2019, with a 34% drawdown from the peak.”
Market Insight: Gamma’s Proving to Be Alpha
The total value locked on decentralized-finance protocol Gamma has doubled in the past month as investors attempt to secure generous staking yields.
Gamma is described as a semi-automated liquidity manager that allows users to provide liquidity at the most lucrative pools across six different blockchains.
The protocol also features staking of its native token, GAMMA, which is producing a variable yield of 7.04%, according to the Gamma website.
The token has performed well since the turn of the year, rising from as low as 7 cents to 33 cents. GAMMA has a market cap of $19.3 million and 2% market depth of $38,209, according to CoinGecko.
The chart shows more than 70% of addresses holding ether are in the money, having acquired coins at an average price lower than the cryptocurrency’s going market rate of $2,090.
The focus now shifts to the $2,365-$2,430 price range, where many addresses have traded the cryptocurrency, according to Pedro Negron, an analyst at IntoTheBlock.
Ether rose past $2,100 last week, hitting its highest point since May 2022.
– Omkar Godbole
With the Virtual pass, you can tune into Consensus 2023 from anywhere in the world to hear industry leaders explore all aspects of crypto, blockchain, Web3 and the metaverse. Register by April 21 to save $100! Learn more and register.
Disclaimer: The information presented in this message is intended as a news item that provides a brief summary of various events and developments that affect, or that might in the future affect, the value of one or more of the cryptocurrencies described above. The information contained in this message, and any information liked through the items contained herein, is not intended to provide sufficient information to form the basis for an investment decision. The information presented herein is accurate only as of its date, and it was not prepared by a research analyst or other investment professional. You should seek additional information regarding the merits and risks of investing in any cryptocurrency before deciding to purchase or sell any such instruments.
