Ethereum Outshines Bitcoin, Dogecoin In Crypto Surge: Is Second-Largest Coin On A 'Hopium' Trip?

Zinger Key Points
  • Ethereum rallies over 16% on Monday, the second-largest coin is up over 42% for the week
  • ETH driven by buzz surrounding the upcoming "The Merge" event
  • Uphold crypto researcher Martin Hiesboeck dismisses recent ETH rally as one driven by "hopium"

Major coins rallied on Monday, with the global cryptocurrency market crossing the psychologically important $1 trillion mark. At press time, the market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies rose 7.9% to $1.03 trillion.

Price Performance Of Major Coins
Coin 24-hour 7-day Price
Bitcoin BTC/USD 7% 11.4% $22,288.86
Ethereum ETH/USD 16.1% 42.4% $1,565.54
Dogecoin DOGE/USD 7.7% 10.4% $0.07
Top 24-Hour Gainers (Data via CoinMarketCap)
Cryptocurrency 24-Hour % Change (+/-) Price
Ethereum Classic (ETC) +40.6% $27.4
Polygon (MATIC) +27.35% $0.97
STEPN (GMT) +24.7% ​​$1.12

See Also: Best Crypto Debit Cards

Why It Matters: Among the major coins, Ethereum’s rise was more dramatic on Monday as it crossed the $1,500 mark for the first time since June 12. The second-largest coin by market cap shot up 17.2% intraday and is up 44.8% for the week. 

Last week’s deployment of Shadow Fork 9 has ushered in the buzz around “The Merge” or Ethereum’s transition to the proof-of-stake protocol from its current proof-of-work model.

Martin Hiesboeck, head of blockchain and cryptocurrency research at Uphold, a cloud-based financial services platform, dismissed the recent rally in the Vitalik Buterin co-created coin as “hopium.”

“We believe that the switch to proof of stake was originally largely motivated by environmental concerns, at a time when there were no alternatives to Ethereum.”

“Now there are, and by and large, they offer a better value proposition than good old ETH. So while Ethereum changed the world and smart contracts showed us the way to more efficient business processes and much else, I think we’ve reached a bottleneck,” said Hiesboeck, in a note seen by Benzinga.

Meanwhile, on-chain data shared by Glassnode on Twitter indicates that 56% of Ethereum’s total supply is now in profit after hitting a low of 41% prior to the current rally.

Traders have “little belief” in the current rebound in Ethereum, tweeted Santiment. The market intelligence platform, however, said that the average return of 30-day traders has surged to 28%, which is the highest since August 2021. 

On the recent rally, Edward Moya, senior market analyst at OANDA, said, “Cryptos are starting to look attractive now that the economy is looking a little better as expectations for Fed tightening eased.”

“If Bitcoin continues to stabilize here over the next two weeks, the crypto winter could be over. Market positioning became extreme and that could allow for the bottom to have been made if the institutional money buys in.”

Michaël van de Poppe said the apex coin faces resistance at the $22,000 mark and reminded his Twitter followers that 10 months ago Bitcoin was at the $69,000 mark.

“We've witnessed a strong move past days and that needs to slow down,” said the Amsterdam-based cryptocurrency trader. 

Trader Justin Bennett said that while the cryptocurrency pump over the weekend was “fun,” digital assets will still need “help from stocks if it wants to continue higher.” He pointed out that the S&P 500 attempted a breakout on Monday but “bears said no.”

Both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq closed 0.8% lower on Monday. At press time S&P 500 and Nasdaq futures traded 0.08% and 0.1% higher, respectively, and were largely flat ahead of a busy earnings week.

Read Next: Here's How Much You'd Have If You Invest $100 In Ethereum Classic Today And It Surges Back To All-Time High

Photo by DUSAN ZIDAR on Shutterstock

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