Ethereum price hits new all-time high, but record high fees threaten its success
Ethereum has recorded profits of over 33% in the past month.
- The cost of executing a smart contract on the Ethereum network recently rose as high as $135.
- Solana is now the fourth-largest cryptocurrency by total market capitalization, recently overtaking Tether and Cardano.
- Ethereum’s scalability woes have caused users to migrate to other altcoin blockchains such as Polkadot and Avalanche.
Yesterday, Ethereum, the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency by total market capitalization, scaled up to a fresh all-time high of $4,821 after fluctuating between $4,372 and $4,674 over the past week.
This latest surge comes even as the Ethereum network faces high transaction fees. In fact, just recently, Malaysian commodities trading firm Enegra Group – boasting a net value of $28 billion approximately – announced that it had moved its equity-tied EGX security tokens from the Ethereum ecosystem to Polygon to minimize its high transaction charges.
Rising gas costs have plagued the ETH network of late, costing $135 to execute a single smart contract. As a result, more and more users have migrated to alternative blockchains such as Polygon, Binance Smart Chain (BSC), Avalanche and more. Over the last few months, Polygon has processed +3 million transactions per day and accrued a total of 105 million unique wallet addresses.
Solana surpasses Cardano and Tether in terms of total market cap
Thanks to yesterday’s market surge, Solana (SOL), a decentralized computing network focused on scalability, surpassed Cardano and Tether to take the fourth spot on the list of cryptos by total market capitalization. The total value of SOL tokens available in the market currently amounts to $74.7 billion, trailing only Binance Coin ($109 billion), Ethereum ($540 billion) and Bitcoin ($1.17 trillion).
Pricewise, Solana has been on a tear through 2021, scaling up to a new all-time high value of $260 just a day ago. On the heels of this momentum, the firm’s venture capital arm – called Solana Ventures – announced that it was set to invest $100 million into the blockchain gaming sector. The deal will be facilitated in conjunction with prominent crypto entities, including FTX and Lightspeed Venture Partners.
Crypto tax laws passed by US senate
Last week, the US House of Representatives announced the passing of a $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure law introduced by the Biden administration earlier this year. As part of the legislation, citizens are now required to follow a comprehensive set of new guidelines for reporting their crypto taxes.
That said, many analysts and pundits have claimed that the bill is unconstitutional and features extremely unclear language, citing parts where it treats crypto software developers, transaction validators and node operators akin to brokers working for various traditional financial institutions.
Interested in cryptocurrency? Learn more about the basics with our beginner’s guide to Bitcoin, dive deeper by learning about Ethereum and see what blockchain can do with our simple guide to DeFi.
Disclosure: The author owns a range of cryptocurrencies at the time of writing
