It’s the beginning of a new week and we are back with now already established weekly overview of top coins to watch. Surprisingly, this week’s selection of top 3 coins consists exclusively of already established and well-known cryptocurrencies as all of them are from the group of top 6 cryptos by market capitalization.
1. Ethereum (ETH)
Top project and coin to watch this week is Ethereum, the second largest cryptocurrency platform by market capitalization. It is a decentralized open source blockchain environment that allows other applications and tokens to operate on its blockchain. Additionally, Ethereum allows smart contracts to be programmed, signed and executed completely in its environment.
Ethereum broke $300 while DeFi sector Continues to See Astonishing Growth
Why did we pick the second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization as the top coin to watch this week, you might ask? Well, we believe, that Ethereum is amidst a mid-term bull market that should continue throughout this week. The price of ETH broke the $300 boundary on July 25 and is currently higher than it has ever been in the past year. This represents a major recovery of the network’s valuation considering that ETH took a significant dive towards the $100 line on March 12th also known as the COVID-19 induced Black Thursday of 2020.
Furthermore, many of the Ethereum-based coins are experiencing fast growth, among which the DeFi protocols such as Balancer (BAL) and Compound (COMP) are among the projects that have seen incredible volume increases. Same goes for Ethereum-based tokens that have recently introduced staking, which is a hot new investment opportunity among the crypto community. Last but not least, Ethereum 2.0 should launch soon, finally bringing staking to Ethereum mainnet itself.
2. Cardano (ADA)
Cardano is a smart contract enabled blockchain project that sprouted under the lead of a Charles Hoskinson, one of the initial founders of Ethereum. The project’s development is subdivided into 5 phases; Byron, Shelley, Goguen, Basho, and Voltaire focusing on foundation, decentralization, smart contracts, scaling, and governance respectively.
Shelley Mainnet Launch is Behind the Corner
While Cardano has experienced a few developmental setbacks in the past, the project advancement now moves swiftly and according to the roadmap. The team has launched the Haskell Shelley testnet for anyone who wants to operate a stakepool to test out his node. Furthermore, the Cardano has completed all things necessary for the Byron-to-Shelley transition, which is scheduled to happen on July 29. A successful mainnet launch of Shelly update could have a very positive impact on community and investor sentiment, which may affect the ADA price movement in the following week. You can follow further Cardano status updates here.
3. Bitcoin (BTC)
Bitcoin is the world’s pioneer cryptocurrency that was launched by pseudonymous figure named Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009. With a capped supply of 21 million coins and miner block rewards halving every 4 years, the cryptocurrency is of a deflationary nature. Consequently, it has found its role in the global economy as a great store of value and is often referred to as “digital gold”, countering the Satoshi’s vision, which was to create a transaction medium.
Bitcoin again over $10,000 and it Looks Like it is Going to Last Longer
The third on our list is the world’s first, biggest, and most well-known crypto – Bitcoin. Two and a half months after Bitcoin’s 3rd Block Reward halving the crypto’s price broke the $10,000 resistance level for the second time since the reward slashing. While this has happened already on June 2, the price increase at the time was very short-lived and BTC quickly returned to sub $10k region. This time around it looks like Bitcoin will be able to stay above $10,000 for longer, especially as the bull market comes after months of one of the lowest levels of price volatility in Bitcoin’s recorded history.
Other fundamental metrics such as the blockchain’s hash rate, the number of wallets and the number of accounts holding more than 1k BTC (Bitcoin whales) are at record levels as well. However, it is true that BTC dominance dropped from 66% at the time of halving to slightly more than 61% at press time. Nevertheless, this is likely due to the very good performance of altcoins (especially DeFi protocols), rather than Bitcoin’s stagnation.
