Ethereum has struggled in terms of price over the last seven days, but the crypto community kept pouring their ETH assets into the deposit contract of its network upgrade (ETH 2.0).
Since the introduction of Beacon Chain in December 2020, the ETH community has staked more than 8.3 million coins under Ethereum 2.0. During the same period, the price of the crypto asset jumped from $600 and touched an all-time high of almost $4,900 in November 2021.
In May 2021, the staking contract of Ethereum’s network upgrade crossed 5 million coins with a total value of $14 billion. Since then, the price of ETH and the overall volume of staked ETH has increased sharply.
According to Vitalik Buterin, the network upgrade of Ethereum will make the entire ecosystem efficient. ETH’s shift from the current proof-of-work network to a more efficient and improved proof-of-stake network will solve energy issues and speed problems.
Within the last five weeks, the overall value of staked coins under the Ethereum 2.0 deposit contract has increased by more than $7 billion.
Ethereum vs Bitcoin
Despite a major difference between the nature of BTC and ETH, global investors have always compared the world’s top 2 digital currencies as a store of value. While Ethereum is up by approximately 400% in 2021 (way more than BTC), Bitcoin’s adoption has increased substantially during the last few months.
“In recent years we’ve witnessed a major shift in the acceptance, and utility, of bitcoin in Latin America. This has contributed to economic growth in the region and provided a beacon of hope for financial freedom. Intuitively, people are seeing the use cases for bitcoin,” Paolo Ardoino, CTO at Bitfinex, said.
“Whether this is as a hedge against inflation or for remittances, we’re seeing a sea change in the acceptance of cryptocurrency in the region across countries as diverse as Argentina, Ecuador, El Salvador and Brazil. Bitcoin has emerged as an alternative to traditional payment systems. We are arguably on the cusp of a technological revolution with bitcoin leading the charge,” Ardoino added.
