Ethereum Stats

Ethereum Price: $306.87
Ethereum Price (BTC): 0.02845 BTC
Market Cap: $32.72B
ETH Network Dominance*: 78.12%
7 Day Candle**: $306.87 / $319.30 / $261.27 / $306.87

️ Nick’s Market Summary

Markets have rallied following Facebook’s cryptocurrency announcement with Ethereum rising to its highest price since August 2018. With 300 days to go until Bitcoin’s next block reward halving as well as Ethereum 2.0’s spec freeze at the end of June and subsequent genesis block on January 3rd, there’s a lot for investors to be excited for. Interestingly however, despite the price of Ethereum increasing by nearly 400% since the start of the year, retail investors are not yet showing renewed interest. Searches for “Buy Ethereum” are the lowest they’ve ever been with a similar trend showing for Bitcoin.

This may not come as a great surprise. Those who exited after taking on losses in the 2017/18 bubble are unlikely to return so soon, and those who held through have become battled-hardened accumulators. Retail interest – at the moment it seems – is hard to find, and the latest price rally feels far from the hysteria we saw previously. It is possible that we are at the very early stages of yet another rapidly expanding bubble, with a few notable events occurring in the next 12 months:

• June 30th – Ethereum 2.0 specification freeze
• July – Bakkt physically-settled BTC futures
• July – Fidelity launches cryptocurrency product (at some point “soon”)
• January 3rd 2020 – Ethereum 2.0 genesis block
• May 2020 – Bitcoin halving
• H1 2020 – Libra launch

As usual, the ongoing threat to the market continues to be in regulatory uncertainty. However, its outcome looks to be expedited by the Libra launch. There is genuine fear among government officials that Libra poses an imminent threat to existing fiat currencies with US lawmakers calling for a hearing on the currency. France is also creating a G7 cryptocurrency task force “amid Libra woes” as one headline put it.

Facebook is now fighting a battle that – if fought well – could provide enormous clarity and value for the cryptocurrency market as a whole.

– Nick, Owner EthereumPrice.org

️ Cloudflare Launches Ethereum Gateway

In a blog on 19 June 2019, Cloudfare, an internet security provider, announced the launch of its Ethereum gateway which forms part of the company’s broader Distributed Web Gateway toolset.

The gateway is designed to allow users to interact with the Ethereum network without installing any additional software. This is part of their Distributed Web Gateway project to expand the decentralized web ecosystem.

The system allows users to access the network and interact with smart contracts using a custom hostname. The new tool can also be used in combination with the Interplanetary File System (IPFS).

Nick Sullivan, Cloudflare’s Head of Cryptography stated that Cloudflare is doing it for developers and the ecosystem at large to show that computing can be done differently.

Jonathan Hoyland, fellow Cryptographer at Cloudfare, added:

“By providing a gateway to the Ethereum network we can help users make the jump from general web-user to cryptocurrency native, eventually making the distributed web a fundamental part of the Internet”

Crypto Stamp Collectibles Launch on Ethereum Blockchain

Stamp collecting just got modernized by the Austrian Postal service with the launch of the first limited edition Crypto Stamp powered by the Ethereum blockchain.

The postal service has issued a limited 150,000 copies which are sold at €6.90 apiece. The stamps come in black, red, blue, yellow, and red. Red is the rarest with only 1,500 in circulation, and black the most common with 78,500 available for purchase. The Crypto Stamp allows the owner to use a physical stamp, but then save its image in their wallet.

The Crypto Stamp is a milestone in that it is the first use case for non-fungible tokens (NFT) launched by a government and is expected to generate $1 million in revenue.

Metlife Using Ethereum to Revolutionize Life Insurance Industry

MetLife subsidiary LumenLab is using blockchain to automate life insurance claims with a product called Lifechain.

The insurance giant is collaborating with Singapore Press Holdings, a media group, and insurance cooperative, NTUC Income, to launch this smart contract platform on the Ethereum blockchain. The pilot project will randomly select 1,000 Insurance policyholders to test the functionality of the technology.

Lifechain works by submitting the deceased’s National Registration Identity as hashed data. Matching policies can be found within one working day, and a notification is automatically sent to the insurer so the claims process can commence.

Julian Tan, the chief of digital business at Singapore Press Holdings (SPH), says that they hope to include more insurers in the future to bring better convenience to families in a time when deceased’s administrative matters need to be dealt with in amongst emotional trauma.

If successful, this could be the catalyst that will transform the insurance industry. Generating new markets and products, while servicing a more diverse set of customers with more cost-effective price points.