Ethereum’s low price provides a discount for anyone long on the Merge
The next major step towards Ethereum's highly anticipated network upgrade is set to take place on 29 June.
- Ethereum is currently down 77% from it's all-time-high value of AUD$7,100.
- The altcoin's share of the digital asset market has dropped to 14%.
- Cardano's highly anticipated Vasil upgrade has been pushed back by another month.
Ethereum has continued to stay range-bound between AUD$1,300 and $1,700 over the past week after facing immense volatility since April. The altcoin is now trading at AUD$1,590 while its monthly losses stand at -46%.
The ongoing decline comes amid large sums of capital rapidly exiting the decentralised finance (DeFi) market, which is largely dominated by Ethereum. Since 5 May, the total value locked (TVL) within the DeFi ecosystem has dipped from AUD$296 billion to its current levels of just AUD$104 billion.
Ethereum's bleeding has been compounded by news of many projects (that were making use of either ETH or a staked version of the altcoin such as stETH) facing severe liquidity issues. For example, lending platforms Celsius Network and Babel Finance which actively utilise large sums of ETH as collateral recently froze client withdrawals in light of the ensuing market volatility.
Similarly, crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital, which currently has over US$10 billion worth of assets under management, is also facing insolvency.
News of Ethereum's next major upgrade — scheduled for 29 June — has also failed to push the digital asset's value up. This will help the network inch closer to its highly anticipated ETH2.0 Merge.
Major Cardano update delayed by another month
Input Output Hong Kong (IOHK), the parent firm behind top 10 cryptocurrency Cardano, revealed earlier this week that the project's long-awaited Vasil upgrade has been delayed by yet another month.
Vasil is meant to help improve Cardano's network efficiency and bolster its smart contract capabilities. It was initially set to go live on 29 June but will now be initiated on the last week of July.
As per IOHK's Nigel Hemsley, the proposed upgrade "is extremely close to finalising the core work". However, there are still some bugs that have not been removed completely.
Avalanche loses 45% of its value
Over the last 30-day stretch, Avalanche, a scalability-oriented smart contract platform, has lost 45% of its value, taking its total market cap down by 30%.
Despite the poor showing, the ecosystem continues to remain a popular layer-1 and layer-2 option for many developers, as is highlighted by its large number of smart contract deposits and active addresses.
Disclosure: The author owns a range of cryptocurrencies at the time of writing.
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