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Highlights
- Ethereum gave a return of over 496% YTD.
- As of Sept 2021, around 117.5 million Ethereum coins were in circulation.
- Ethereum’s 52-week highest price was US$4,891.70.
Ethereum (ETH) is the second-largest cryptocurrency after Bitcoin (BTC) based on market capitalization. On Wednesday morning, Ethereum (ETH) traded at around US$4,294, while Bitcoin (BTC) traded at around US$49,069.
Analysts forecast Ethereum (ETH) may hit US$5,000 per token by the end of 2021, given its rapid price gains and the sustained bullish momentum witnessed this year.
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What is Ethereum?
Ethereum is a decentralized open-source blockchain system and has its own cryptocurrency called Ether. Its platform is also used for trading other cryptocurrencies and executing decentralized smart contracts.
Co-founder Vitalik Buterin had first described Ethereum in a 2013 whitepaper. In the summer of the following year, Ethereum creators raised US$18.3 million in online crowdfunding for the project. The funds were generated in BTCs.
ETH priced its initial coin offering for US$0.311 per coin. It sold over 60 million coins at the time.
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Source: Data provided by CoinMarketCap.com.
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Why is Ethereum popular?
Ethereum has pioneered the concept of a blockchain smart contract platform. Smart contracts are computer programs that automatically execute the required actions for fulfilling an agreement between several parties on the internet.
These smart contracts were designed to reduce the need for trusted intermediates between contractors. Hence, it also reduces transaction costs while also raising transaction reliability.
Its innovation allows the execution of smart contracts using the blockchain, further reinforcing the existing benefits of smart contract technology.
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Ethereum’s performance:
Ethereum has a market cap of US$521.10 billion, and its fully diluted market cap is US$510.04 billion. Its last 24-hour trading volume was worth US$19.75 billion.
The 52-week highest and lowest prices of Ethereum were US$4,891.70 and US$533.00, respectively. Ethereum gave a return of 496.1% YTD.
As of Sept 2021, around 117.5 million ETH coins were in circulation. Meanwhile, 72 million of these coins were issued in the genesis block, the first block on the Ethereum blockchain, and 60 million was given to the initial contributors of the 2014 crowd sale that funded the project, and 12 million were allotted to the development fund.
The remaining coins have been allotted in the form of block rewards to the miners of the Ethereum network. In 2015, the original reward was 5 ETH per block, which decreased to 3 ETHs in 2017. Meanwhile, in 2019, it went down to 2 ETH.
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Will Ethereum (ETH) price hit US$5,000 before Christmas ?
Bottomline
Cryptocurrencies drew huge interest from investors in 2021. Many experts believe ETH may hit the US$5,000 mark by Christmas. However, investors should carefully evaluate the cryptos and the market volatility before investing in the crypto industry.
