Trader Spends $118k in Ether on Memecoin

In recent news, a single trader has spent an enormous amount of money on gas fees to purchase a memecoin called Four (FOUR) on the Ethereum network. The trader paid $118,000 in gas fees using Ether (ETH) to buy $155,000 worth of FOUR tokens through a Uniswap trade. The trade involved swapping 84 Wrapped Ether (WETH) for 13.8 billion FOUR tokens.

The trader voluntarily increased their gas fee to speed up the transaction time and has reportedly gained 133 ETH ($245,667) in unrealized profit on their investment in the memecoin. However, this raises the question of whether the rise in gas fees is sustainable for mass adoption, as many have criticized the fees for being too high.

The Ethereum network has been facing a lot of criticism for its gas fees, which have been increasing due to the rise in activity on the network. Some prominent Ethereum advocates have praised the heightened activity for its revenue-generating effects and long-term deflationary pressure on the supply of Ether. However, others have claimed that mass adoption will never be achieved if the network remains unaffordable.

Another major reason behind the drastic uptick in gas fees is the maximal extractable value (MEV) trading bot that is front-running memecoin trades en masse. A pseudonymous attacker known only as jaredfromsubway.eth has been profiting significantly from the heightened network use. The attacker has been using a sandwich attack to manipulate the price and profit from the user.

A sandwich attack occurs when an attacker “sandwiches” a victim’s transaction between their two transactions. Jared has cleared a whopping $950,000 in profits from the sandwich attacks alone. On April 20, Jared used 7% of the total gas on the network and spent 455 ETH in transaction fees.

In conclusion, the rise in gas fees on the Ethereum network has caused debates in the crypto community over its impact on mass adoption. The attacker, jaredfromsubway.eth, has been using a sandwich attack to manipulate the price and profit from the user. While some advocate for the heightened activity, others have criticized the fees for being too high, and it remains to be seen whether the network will become more affordable for mass adoption.

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Why Ethereum Could See 4x Increase, Says This Model

Ethereum has experienced a market pullback following bitcoin recently. Although the market remains in a downtrend, the digital asset has been holding up quite nicely. Ethereum has been trending above $2,800, almost 50% down from its all-time high. But a model suggests that three is a 4x movement in the near future of the digital asset. Let’s take a look at this model.

Ethereum To 4X?

In a recent Twitter thread, a crypto investor known as Shaan Puri lays out the model that could drive Ethereum to four times its current price. It starts out by stating that the digital asset is currently undervalued by up to 4 times meaning that they expect the price to be much higher than it currently is.

Related Reading | TA: Ethereum Recovers Losses, Why Bulls Face Major Challenge

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Pointing to a basis laid out by Ryan Allis, another crypto investor, Puri explains how the former’s model puts ETH at $10K. Instead of just going through “hopes and dreams” or the usual wider adoption argument, it uses three key attributes to put the cryptocurrency at such a high price.

Ethereum price chart from TradingView.com

ETH recovers above $2,800 | Source: ETHUSD on TradingView.com

The first of these is the revenue generated by the asset. As with many crypto projects, sending the tokens incur a fee on the part of the sender. This fee is then paid to the miner for providing the computational power required to confirm these transactions. Puri points out that in January alone, generated revenue from transaction fees was $1.3 billion, which are then split into the base and tip fee.

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With the implementation of the EIP-1559 last year, the ethereum fee burn was implemented. With time, more ETH is being burned than is being created, thus turning the digital asset deflationary.

The second point was valuing companies that have cash flow. Something which the created of this model understands well, given that they went to business school. It follows up with a picture that explains ethereum’s discounted cash flow valuation and how it ties into this model.

ETH discounted cash flow valuation | Source: Twitter

Last but not least, the assumptions behind the model, which are “the model assumes a 25% annual growth rate and a 35x P/E ratio (the average of the SP500.” Puri explains that the high gas fees are a cause for concern for both devs and users, which leads to two major risks; all transactions moving to L2s to manage transaction fees or another smart contracts platform winning out in the end.

Related Reading | Bitcoin On-Chain Demands Suggests That The Market Has Reached Its Bottom

Basically, given that ethereum possesses real cash flow, it can be used in the fundamental analysis of the asset, Puri added.

Featured image from NullTX, chart from TradingView.com

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Over 1 Billlion ETH Has Been Burned Since Ethereum EIP-1559

The Ethereum network has been burning ETH since the EIP-1559 first went into effect in early August. Since then, a portion of fees has been continuously burned, taking a large portion of the digital asset out of circulation. This hard fork had been implemented to combat the inflationary nature of Ethereum and it has been successful as countless blocks have been deflationary since the hard fork took place.

ETH Burned Clocks 1 Billion

The amount of ETH burned has risen along with fees on the network. Increased network usage had caused transactions costs on Ethereum to skyrocket and since EIP-1559 was implemented to burn a third of all fees, a higher volume of ETH has been constantly taken out of circulation. The number had quickly hit 1 million ETH, then 10 million, and by 100 million, the community had turned its eyes towards the billion mark.

Related Reading | Institutional Buys Will Put Bitcoin At $500,000 In Five Years, Cathie Wood

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Ethereum hit this number on Wednesday when the total number of ETH burned on the network had crossed 1 billion. It only took a little over three months to hit this number and as burning ramps up on the network, it may take even less time to hit the 2 billion mark.

At the current ETH price, the total amount of ETH burned comes out to over $4.2 billion. Prior to EIP-1559, all this volume would have gone into circulation, increasing the amount of circulating ETH, contributing to the inflationary nature of ETH. However, with the burn, Ethereum is headed towards a truly deflationary future.

Impact Of Ethereum Burn

Although Ethereum is not fully deflationary, the impact of the ETH burn has shone through the network in recent times. Some interesting stats show that ETH being put into circulation per mined block has reduced significantly. Since the hard fork, the net reduction has reached as high as 67.16%.

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Related Reading | Why This Crypto Billionaire Abandoned Ethereum

Additionally, net issuance has also dropped in line with net reduction. Net issuance on the Ethereum network is currently sitting at 490,400 at the time of this writing. There have been 1,493,739 ETH rewards issued, translating to a little over $6.3 billion. While tips on the network have done significantly well, with over 200,000 ETH tipped so far, totaling $846 million.

How Price Has Done In Contrast

Ethereum’s price has done tremendously well since the burn began. Since August, the digital asset has hit multiple new highs and come close to testing the $5,000 resistance point. The asset has since taken a beating down along with the rest of the crypto market but it has held up above $4,000 despite bears trying to pull the price down.

Ethereum price chart from TradingView.com

ETH recovers after dip | Source: ETHUSD on TradingView.com

Indicators have remained bullish even when the market has not fared so well. Analysts have put the digital asset at $5,000 by year-end, propelled by the growth of DeFi. As more investors flock to the blockchain to take advantage of this new industry, Ethereum shows great promise of hitting this price before 2021 runs out.

Featured image from Genesis Block, chart from TradingView.com

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Polygon Founder Says Ethereum Is Set To Replace Bitcoin As The Global Standard

Bitcoin still remains the top crypto project in the space. But it no secret that Ethereum has been quickly catching up with the pioneer cryptocurrency. Ethereum’s decentralized finance (DeFi) use cases have been the major contributor behind this space as investors have flocked to the blockchain to earning returns on their crypto holdings. This has given rise to popular Layer 2 solutions like Polygon.

Recently, co-founder and COO of Polygon Sandeep Nailwal was on Cointelegraph to talk about the future of the leading smart contracts blockchain. Ethereum is the number 2 layer 1 blockchain, only behind bitcoin. And Nailwal believes that it is only a matter of time before the blockchain takes over as the leading Layer 1 protocol. He credits this to a number of reasons and differences between the two blockchains.

Related Reading | Over $5 Billion In Bitcoin And Ethereum Moved From Cold Wallets Amid China Crackdown

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The DeFi Space Is Booming

During an exclusive interview with Cointelegraph, the COO outlines the reasons why Ethereum was set to take over from bitcoin as the leading layer 1 protocol. Nailwal cited the growth of the DeFi space as a major push for this takeover. This is because the majority of the decentralized finance activities were carried out on Ethereum, which made it “the ultimate settlement layer.”

Its popularity has pushed ETH to become even more valuable as a blockchain which puts it directly in a position to overtake the top cryptocurrency. “Sooner or later, ETH will outpace Bitcoin and become the global standard,” the COO said. Nailwal pointed out that Polygon will play a major role in the long-term success of the blockchain with the scalability solutions which it provides.

Related Reading | Crypto Analyst Says Ethereum Market Is A “Ticking Time Bomb”, Here’s Why

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More than just beating out Bitcoin for the top spot, the co-founder expressed that the blockchain may in fact not exist 10 years from now. This is because of the limited use cases and the COO believes that if bitcoin is to survive in the future, then it needs to provide more functions than being a means of exchange and investment.

Ethereum Filtering Out The Noise

With time, a number of projects have come out of the woodwork to compete with Ethereum for the DeFi attention it is getting. Referred to as “ETH killers,” these blockchains have risen up to take market share from the leading DeFi platform. Solana has been at the forefront of this competitive movement and has grown tremendously as it went up against Ethereum.

Ethereum price chart from TradingView.com

Ethereum price chart from TradingView.com


ETH price rebounds above $3,200 | Source: ETHUSD on TradingView.com

Despite the growing popularity of other Layer 1 solutions, the co-founder of Polygon does not believe that there is any blockchain that can take over Ethereum. The layer 1 solution has maintained a majority share of the market despite the rise of its competitors.

Ethereum will most likely maintain the top spot in the market for the foreseeable future. And with proof of stake scheduled to come to the blockchain next year, ETH is set to dominate both the DeFi and crypto space.

Chart from TradingView.com

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Ethereum’s spot setup looks grim, but derivatives data tells a different story

Ether (ETH) price fell below the $3,000 support on Sept. 20 as global markets entered a risk-aversion mode. The Invesco China Technology ETF (CQQQ) closed down 4.2%, while the SPDR S&P Metals and Mining ETF (XME) lost 3.8%.

Some analysts pointed to the potential ripple effects of the default of Evergrande, a major Chinese real estate company. In contrast, others blame the ongoing debates over the debt limit in Washington as the catalyst for this week’s volatility. As a result, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX), usually referred to as the “stock market fear index,” jumped by more than 30% to reach its highest level since May.

On Sept.19, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen called for Congress to raise the U.S. debt ceiling again in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. Yellen suggested that avoiding this would risk causing the government to default on payments and generate a “widespread economic catastrophe.”

One of the major focuses for traditional markets is this week’s U.S. Federal Open Market Committee meeting, which ends on Sept. 22. At the meeting, the Federal Reserve is expected to signal when it will cut back its $120 billion monthly asset purchase program.

How these events impact Ether price

Ether price in USD at Bitstamp. Source: TradingView

Even though the $3,000 level sits near the bottom range of the previous performance of the past 45 days, Ether still accumulated 210% gains in 2021. The network’s adjusted total value locked (TVL) jumped from $13 billion in 2020 to $60 billion and the decentralized finance (DeFi), gaming, and nonfungible token (NFT) sectors experienced an impressive surge while Ethereum maintained dominance of the sector’s market share.

Despite mean gas fees surpassing $20 in September, Ethereum has kept roughly 60% of the decentralized exchange (DEX) volume. Its largest competitor, Binance Smart Chain, held an average daily volume slightly below $1 billion, albeit having a transaction fee below $0.40.

Ether futures data shows pro traders are still bullish

Ether’s quarterly futures are the preferred instruments of whales and arbitrage desks due to their settlement date and the price difference from spot markets. However, the contract’s biggest advantage is the lack of a fluctuating funding rate.

These fixed-month contracts usually trade at a slight premium to spot markets, indicating that sellers request more money to withhold settlement longer. Therefore, futures should trade at a 5% to 15% annualized premium in healthy markets. This situation is technically defined as “contango” and is not exclusive to crypto markets.

ETH futures 3-month annualized premium. Source: Laevitas

As displayed above, Ether’s futures contracts premium spiked to 15% on Sept. 6 as ETH price tested the $4,000 resistance. Apart from that brief overshot, the basis indicator ranged from 8% to 12% over the past month, considered healthy and bullish.

The crash to sub-$3,000 in the early hours of Sept. 21 was not enough to scare seasoned traders. More importantly, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Gary Gensler’s interview on cryptocurrency regulation also had no noticeable impact on Ether price. Had there been a generalized fear, Ether futures premium would have reflected this.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph. Every investment and trading move involves risk. You should conduct your own research when making a decision.