2021, the historic year where Ethereum (ETH) will outperform Bitcoin (BTC)

By: Bharggavi Ssayee

2021, the historic year where Ethereum (ETH) will outperform Bitcoin (BTC)

August 6, 2021 6:44 AM

Ether stole the show from Bitcoin (BTC) in the first half of 2021, according to Coinbase. While decentralized finance remains an important development lever for Ethereum, it alone does not explain its good performance.

 

Ethereum DeFie Bitcoin Successfully

Coinbase crowns Ethereum in its semi-annual report. Ether has, according to the exchange, outpaced all other cryptocurrencies, even Bitcoin, in terms of growth and volume of trade. The latter recorded an increase of 1,461% during the first 6 months of 2021, and reached $ 1,400 billion, against 92 billion over the same period in 2020.

 

The Coinbase report written by Brian Foster also highlighted the gains made by Ether, whose price “appreciated by 895% over a 12-month period and 210% over a 6-month period ending on the 30th. June ".

 

This performance can be explained in large part by the rise of decentralized finance, most of the projects of which are still hosted on Ethereum today. Coinbase cites a "growing use of DeFi protocols built on Ethereum, validating the network's value as a global financial utility and platform for developers." "

 

According to data from DeFi Pulse, $ 68.73 billion is locked in decentralized finance at the time of writing. While the total locked-in value (TVL) is an indicator often used to measure the growth of decentralized finance, its interpretation must however be qualified.

 

Ether can count on institutions and on London

But these good results are also due, according to Coinbase, to an increased interest of institutional investors in Ether:

 

“In the first half of 2021, we saw a surge of interest in DeFi among our institutional client base. "

 

Ethereum is expected to gain even more "popularity" as the deployment of Ethereum 2.0 progresses. The London Update is slated for August 4, 2021. It is expected to fix issues with high transaction fees, and even potentially make Ether deflationary through fee destruction.

 

Vitalik Buterin's ambitions for Ethereum go beyond decentralized finance. The blockchain could be used, among other things, to create decentralized social networks protected from censorship with better quality content.