ETH To The Moon? | 2021 And Beyond

Boasting the second-largest market cap at over 244B, the Ethereum ecosystem has blossomed into the first choice for DeFi developers and NFT sales. Seasoned cryptocurrency traders have compared cryptoasset trading in 2021to “investing in the internet in the early 1990s” — periods characterized by big hopes and rapid growth.

You don’t have to look far to find once opposed investors warming up to cryptocurrency amidst the increased positive sentiment we are enjoying today. Mark Cuban made headlines in 2019 for referring to crypto as “too complicated,” and stating he would “rather have bananas than bitcoin.” His views on BTC may not have changed dramatically, but his appearance on the Unchained podcast where he raved about ETH suggests a change of heart.

Mark touted Ethereum’s smart contract functionality as the driving factor for why Ethereum will eventually dwarf Bitcoin as he has quickly become a poster boy for the Ethereum network alongside his DOGE responsibilities.

Although we can’t say for certain whether these ambitious speculations will come true we can speculate as to why this rapid growth exists and if it will continue.

NFTs and numerous dApp and DeFi projects written on the Ethereum protocol have been receiving a considerable amount of attention lately, finding headlines in most major traditional news outlets. With a top-performing network and settlement infrastructure, a growing developer community, ambitious network scalability improvements in the pipe, an expected decrease in liquidity, and massively outperforming Bitcoin in Q1 2021 by nearly 60 percent, Ethereum is poised for a moon shot.

Just as Ethereum is acclimating to rising infrastructure requirements and scalability concerns, at ProBit Exchange we have been elevating our user experience — tackling the most common security and trading concerns from our community.

The ProBit Safe Fund funded by regular buybacks offers the ProBit community insurance in case of data breaches. Despite our goals of never tapping into this resource, it serves as another layer of security and assurance for our community.

Our recent Information Security Management System (ISMS) Certification approval further illustrates this commitment to securing YOUR assets. This achievement solidified our foundation in security and asset protection offering users at ProBit Exchange peace of mind, knowing their assets are secured with institutional-grade features.

ProBit Exchange will further build off of this foundation with new features and user benefits enabling easy gains from the rapid growth of ETH and your favorite cryptocurrencies.

Catalysts For ETH Growth

The Ethereum network currently connects over 540,000 active addresses, up over 3.5x since the start of 2020. While Ethereum has yet to match Bitcoin in this vital metric of protocol health, Ethereum is closing the gap quickly. Miner revenue within the Ethereum network reached ATHs at $1.4B inching closer to Bitcoin fluctuating around $1.5B.

Ethereum offers a robust ecosystem that has stood the test of time without any glaring security flaws or concerns. Ethereum offers similar strength and security to the Bitcoin network and proves to have a solid foundation for future adoption and further proliferation.

DApps operating on the Ethereum network now saturate myriad verticals ranging from trading, insurance, lending, streaming, file exchanges, and NFTs. Most digital goods and services could benefit from a secure and reliable autonomous settlement system and this reality will continue to be realized by new businesses daily. Self-executing contracts are one of the most anticipated aspects of dApps and the driving core innovation offered with Ethereum — 229M smart contracts are currently implemented.

Despite rapid growth in the dApp space, DeFi still holds the highest level of activity within the Ethereum ecosystem. The total value locked-in (TVL) of the DeFi ecosystem has increased from 850M in April 2020 to over 60B in April 2021 — over 60x growth in one year. Although there is substantial overlap within the crypto ecosystem — with BTC growth contributing to ETH and vice versa — these metrics, among many others, can prove to be useful in determining future growth potential.

Recent fiat/crypto bridges integrated by Visa and Mastercard are promising developments, creating new payment vehicles enabling merchants to begin accepting cryptocurrency. Venmo has also recently onboarded crypto, enabling users to purchase and sell digital assets including ETH on their platform.

Similarly, mortgage lenders and traditional financial institutions such as Fidelity Digital Assets have started accepting cryptocurrency collateralization for loans. These are small but promising steps in DeFi’s future growth and cryptocurrencies’ quest for widespread perceived legitimacy.

The potentially disruptive integration of Ethereum and IoT is one to watch. Machine-to-machine transactions powered by the Ethereum network no longer reside in theory and could become the dominant force in the world of transactions within this decade. Once again, Ethereum is the driving force behind this development.

There are clearly many reasons to be excited about Ethereum including its dominant developer community, strong scalability improvements, the upcoming supply shrinkage, and more, presenting the Ethereum network and the value of ETH in an optimistic light. And that’s not even touching on the massive potential of L2 and other scaling solutions such as sharding, ZKSwaps, and many other innovations aimed at lifting the scalability ceiling.

Risks And Concerns

As with any innovation, there will be an adoption curve, and in the case of Ethereum, regulatory concerns, volatility risk, and competitor growth.

Polkadot and Cardano, both of which were created by Ethereum co-founders, have greatly benefited from Ethereum 2.0s rough rollout. The Binance Smart Chain is producing similar levels of transaction volume to Ethereum while NEO, touted as the Chinese Ethereum, saw an over 840% value increase in one year.

Just as there is huge excitement and growth potential for the Ethereum network and its native ETH token, there is just as much in other areas of the cryptocurrency world. Don’t let yourself fall in love with one token or network — diversify.

Ethereum is rapidly maturing into a reliable and notable decentralized digital settlement network with unmatched smart contract infrastructure. The Ethereum 2.0 roadmap and potential regulatory efforts may raise some eyebrows but current macro forces and Ethereum’s rapid growth are certainly convincing.

A revolution is occurring and Ethereum is in the vanguard.