Ethereum keeps delighting investors while maintaining its positions near all-time highs. Since the beginning of this year, the ETH/USD surged 352% and reached $3500, with the cryptocurrency market capitalization climbing to $400 billion. This growth was enough to make the founder of the digital currency, a 27-year-old Russian, Vitalik Buterin, the youngest cryptocurrency billionaire in the world. Buterin held 333,520 tokens in his crypto wallet, and after the ETH rate surpassed the $3000 mark, his fortune is now estimated at $1 billion.
It is worth noting that Ethereum has made the world's top 30 assets, overtaking such companies as Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) and Walt Disney (NYSE:DIS). Market participants believe that the bullish rally in ETH is not over yet, especially considering the capital inflow rate into the world's second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.
According to CoinShares data, Bitcoin and Ethereum saw an additional $489 million inflow last week. In particular, the inflow of funds in Ether last week amounted to $30.2 million, and in 2021 - $13.9 billion.
Why do traders keep investing in ETH? It's simple. Ethereum is now holding the leading positions in terms of network commissions and daily transactions. To date, the Ethereum blockchain network establishes a value of $30.5 billion. The number of active Ethereum addresses and the amount of funds involved in DeFi keep breaking new records. In addition, there are less than three months left before Ethereum's EIP 1559 upgrade, the procedure that will "burn" the small amount of tokens reducing the supply of Ether.
Experts believe that this reduction in the supply may cause the ETH Price to skyrocket. It is worth noting that developers are actively working on merging the Ethereum network with the Ethereum 2.0 network. Last week, a blockchain "bridge" was established between the Ethereum and Tezos blockchains, which should allow to reduce the size of commissions for Ethereum. The Steklo test network was also launched last week. The purpose of this short-lived testnet is to test new ways to combine the first and second-generation networks. A certain shortage of tokens in the market is also created due to their locking in the Ethereum 2.0 network. In dollar terms, the total value locked in Eth 2.0 surpassed $12 billion.
The significant investor interest in Ether is also explained by the general market euphoria. The cryptocurrency market is really thriving now, very similar to the hype of 2017. Experts believe that digital currencies have already become an integral part of the global speculative market. In an environment where institutional investors are beginning to question the ability of global central banks to curb inflation triggered by uncontrolled liquidity injections to support the global economy weakened by the COVID-19 pandemic, cryptocurrencies, with their unprecedented growth rates, become the only solid alternative for the reallocation and redistribution of funds. That being said, we recommend joining the ranks of Ether investors with the growth target for ETH/USD at $5000.