Ethereum Stats

Ethereum Price: $211.95
Ethereum Price (BTC): 0.018610 BTC
Market Cap: $22.74B
ETH Network Dominance*: 75.51%
7 Day Candle**: $231.89 / $239.60 / $200.20 / $211.95

Nick’s Market Summary

Last week the ETH/BTC market pair hit yet more lows, falling to a price of 0.017559 BTC as Bitcoin’s market cap dominance touched a 2 year high of 70%. The pair has not seen a price this low since March 2017 and is trading down nearly 90% from its high of 0.15 BTC in June of the same year. While most cryptocurrencies have moved downwards against BTC in recent months, the ETH/BTC trend is particularly difficult to justify as it starkly contradicts the developments that are happening in the ecoystem today.

Ethereum is expanding in ways that were largely unexpected just a year ago. $460 million has now been locked on the Ethereum blockchain in decentralized finance applications with well over $100 million circulating in the form of interest-earning Compound tokens. This all comes at a time when the supply issuance of ETH is expected to be driven downwards as the blockchain moves towards its proof of stake consensus mechanism, starting (hopefully) in October with the launch of Ethereum’s beacon chain contract.

This direction of Ethereum leaves a lot for investors to be excited about. Ryan Sean Adams published a terrific article this week discussing and supporting his recently penned meme, “ETH is Money”. In the article, Ryan takes a look at ETH’s role as a “triple-point asset”; one which has characteristics of capital, currency and transformable assets like oil. The more time that passes, the more plausible it is that Ethereum will play a central role in digital finance. One need only experiment with the likes of Compound, InstaDapp or MakerDAO to see why.

While Ethereum moves from strength to strength, Bitcoin remains mostly as it was several years ago. Stasis, however, is arguably one of Bitcoin’s most valuable features, and serves as a credible explanation as to why the ETH/BTC market continues to face downward pressure in the short-term. Ethereum’s change-loving approach to its software (which will not relent any time soon) gives the perception of a higher level of risk and the lack of a fixed supply schedule opens up a one-dimensional comparison between the two blockchains. “ETH’s money supply is unknown, while BTC’s is not”.

With stasis being the one clear edge that Bitcoin has on Ethereum today, it is worth noting that Ethereum will too achieve a comparable level of stability. ETH 2.0 (Serenity) is the final stage in Ethereum’s development phases and is likely to conclude in the next few years, leaving the base layer of software relatively untouched as the ecosystem above it is given the capacity to flourish. At this point, Bitcoin’s edge as a predictable store of value will become obsolete in the face of a now much more powerful and expressive Ethereum.

– Nick, Owner EthereumPrice.org

Mainnet Innitiative Launched By EEA

The Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA) is in the process of setting up a technical group called the EEA Mainnet Initiative, to work on the collaboration between the Ethereum mainnet and enterprises. The working group intends to accelerate and lead cooperation between the EEA’s enterprise and start-up members, as well as those who work on the mainnet’s technology and interoperability solutions.

The initiative is looking to extend its knowledge about how public network components match the commercial market requirements needed to boost adoption of Ethereum. The EEA will hold interactive discussions on the Mainnet Initiative as part of Devcon 5, the Ethereum Foundation’s major developer conference, in October 2019.

According to Microsofts Marley Gray, EEA board member and principal architect at the tech giant, the precipitous acceleration of technology around the Ethereum mainnet requires heightened interoperability and scalability, which is the core function of the Mainnet Initiative.

Alongside the Mainnet Initiative announcement, the EEA also said that they have appointed a new Board member, the Ethereum Foundation’s Aya Miyaguchi.

The EEA is a blockchain consortium with over 450 enterprise business members, including, among others, Microsoft, JPMorgan Chase, Santander, Accenture, ING, Intel, and Cisco. The consortium’s objective is to promote the use of the Ethereum blockchain as an open-standard to empower all enterprises.

Ethereum-Based Game Gods Unchained to Change Gaming Forever

Gods Unchained is the latest Ethereum blockchain-based card game that takes some of the best aspects of popular games such as Hearthstone and Faeria and turns them into a truly community-focused game. The state-of-the-art decentralized competitive card game by Fuel Games enables players to trade cards freely with the same level of ownership as if they were real tangible cards.

Ethereum plays a key role in Gods Unchained, providing the blockchain for which the cards are stored as Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) – the technology made famous by CryptoKitties. In this way, the designers say that “nerfing,” or intentionally weakening the cards is impossible.

Some may question whether Ethereum is currently capable of handling a game this size.  To this, the developers say absolutely. All cards are stored on Ethereum; however, players will only need to interact on the network when purchasing or transferring cards. The rest of play will run using industry-standard technology like Unity. This allows gameplay to be indistinguishable from other games that don’t employ distributed ledgers while allowing a large user base without weighing down the network.

The game is currently available on a balancing beta to the public and the full game will be available in October 2019.

Facebooks Digital Currency Libra, Once Again in the Spotlight over Privacy Concerns

The UK’s data watchdog joined a host of other regulatory bodies in expressing concerns about the controversial Facebook token, Libra. This comes hot on the heels of the US Senate hearing which examined Facebook’s proposed digital currency and data privacy considerations.

Questions around how customers’ personal data would be processed in line with data protection laws were presented in a joint letter. Elizabeth Denham, the UK Information Commission, reiterated that the token would have to “work in tandem with people’s privacy expectations and rights.”

Her concerns seem to be largely with the rapid pace at which the project is moving and the level of detail that has been seen in regards to compliance with regulators.

Facebook replied with what has become a boilerplate response when Dante Disparte, the head of policy and communications for the Libra Association, told Sky News: “We appreciate these thoughtful questions and share the commitment to protecting personal information…, we acknowledge the need to design an infrastructure that complies with global privacy requirements.”

The beleaguered Facebook project plans to launch its digital currency within the next year.