Crypto Weekly Outlook: August 30, 2021
Updated: Sep 2, 2021
A new report claims that Bitcoin whales have increased their holdings throughout June, July, and the first half of August. The last time similar whale activity occurred was in the run-up to Bitcoin’s all-time high of $64K. The premier cryptocurrency has been repeatedly repelled at the $50K mark. Will this week be any different?
Over $400M of Ether has now been burned by Ethereum’s EIP-1559 upgrade. The second-largest cryptocurrency has been trading range-bound between $3,050 and $3,350 over the past week, however, it is known that the supply is expected to get tighter and tighter, and not just from the burning. Staking is also a major factor. The ETH 2.0 staking contract recently became the largest Ether holder, surpassing Wrapped Ether. It is now the third most staked cryptocurrency, after Solana and Cardano. Despite the recent rise in alternative Layer 1 blockchains, investors shouldn’t take their eyes off this growth in ETH staking.
Investor sentiment in Cardano (ADA) has stayed strong as the Alonzo Hard Fork date of September 12th approaches. Cryptocurrency betting platform Polymarket is currently assigning odds of 83% that smart contracts will be supported by October 1st, an increase of 3% from last week, likely due to recent assurances that the upgrade date hasn’t been changed. In fact, Cardano’s Hoskinson has noted that the team is currently preparing for the Alonzo testnet hard fork, due to launch on September 1st. Additionally, it was just announced that Cardano will launch the Ethereum ERC-20 convertor in the coming days. The convertor is meant to bridge Ethereum’s blockchain to Cardano, enabling Ethereum tokens to port over and back again if users so choose. Cardano’s Landino believes that many application developers will migrate due to the lower costs and quicker speeds. If true, it would signal a major shift in the battle for dominance in smart contracts. Assuming all of the tests finish without a hitch, ADA might just finally breach the $3 level and continue its monster run.
