Ethereum sets new all-time high price as ANZ bank hints at cryptocurrency products
Ethereum’s weekly gains currently stand at an impressive 7%.
- Gas fees on the Ethereum (ETH) network have remained extremely high, forcing users to transition to other bridge-based EVM compatible ecosystems.
- An ANZ executive recently revealed that the banking giant may be looking to adopt the use of cryptocurrencies in the near future.
- The total market capitalization of the digital currency sector now stands at $2.86 trillion.
Over the last 24 hours, Ethereum has continued to hover around the $4,450–$4,600 range, exhibiting monthly profits of over 29%. At press time, ETH is trading at a price point of $4,398.
In terms of where the altcoin might be headed in the near term, data released by Ecoinmetrics suggests that if ETH were to follow its 2016/2017 performance trajectory – a time when it was hovering at its then all-time-high value – it could very well continue to rise, possibly scaling up to a price point of $22,300.
That being said, Ethereum’s native gas fee rates have been soaring over the last couple of months, resulting in multi-chain compatible DeFi platforms seeing record inflows from investors across the globe. As things stand, the cost of facilitating a basic transition on the Ethereum network is hovering around the $30-$50 range, depending on the time of day.
What’s more is that even certain layer-2 solutions – such as Arbitrum – that were devised to help ease out these high fee issues have been suffering from congestion issues, with txn rates hovering close to the $30 range across many of these L2 platforms as well.
As per data released by Dune Analytics, the total value locked across ridged protocols – i.e. third-party platforms that feature an Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) – has continued to rise since the beginning of October, suggesting that more and more people may be transitioning from the ETH network due to the volatility.
ANZ to follow in CBAs footsteps?
Just a day after the Commonwealth Bank announced its decision to launch a crypto trading desk for its 6.5 million smartphone app users, a senior executive for ANZ revealed to a Blockchain Australia forum member that the bank is watching the crypto sector closely as it has “grown too big” to be ignored anymore.
As a quick recap, the CBA recently revealed that its CommBank App customers can now purchase a total of 10 premier digital currencies, including Ethereum, Bitcoin, Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash, amongst others.
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
