Given that bitcoin is now trading above $42,000 – something it hasn’t done in a long time – the cryptocurrency space is approaching a market cap of around $1.7 trillion. The currency was allegedly given a slight boost by the “London” upgrade that occurred for Ethereum a few days earlier, and this upgrade is likely to have caused several other altcoins (including Cardano and Polkadot) to rise as well.
Ethereum is expected to outperform Bitcoin in the coming years.
However, while bitcoin is arguably showing the most positive results, with a surge of about $2,000 or $3,000 overnight, many people believe that this new London upgrade will cause Ethereum to overtake BTC as the world’s number one digital currency by market cap. In an interview, Tim Sabanov, chief technology officer at Zumo in Scotland, explained:
Ethereum has the potential to dethrone bitcoin as the world’s most valuable cryptocurrency… What Ethereum has done is improved on something that already exists – bitcoin. It has a thriving developer community, which means the ecosystem is expanding at a breakneck pace.
Ethereum is expected to become much faster and more efficient as a result of the London upgrade. It is also said to move Ethereum away from its proof-of-work module and closer to a proof-of-stake protocol, allowing individuals to stake their ETH units and earn interest on their holdings. Sabanov went on to say:
The crypto giant recently surpassed bitcoin in terms of total active daily addresses, and this trend shows no signs of abating as the network continues to power key defi and NFT trends.
He isn’t the only one who sees big things for ETH. In a recent statement, Nathan Cox of Two Prime fame explained:
Yes, in the long, long, multi-year timeline. Bitcoin will be flipped by Ethereum. It is only now that second-tier adopters are beginning to understand it. The utility of Ethereum alone will outperform everything else.
In addition to making Ethereum faster and more efficient, London will “burn” or destroy several Ethereum units already in circulation. This is expected to make Ethereum much more scarce, bringing the price even closer to that of bitcoin. Diogo Monica, co-founder and president of cryptocurrency bank Anchorage Digital, stated:
This is a significant boost to better efficiency for the many cryptocurrencies and defi applications that are linked to it, which is good for the overall crypto ecosystem.
The Network is expecting big things.
Paolo Ardoino, chief technology officer at cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex, was also quick to weigh in, saying:
We are confident that [Ethereum’s] network upgrade will result in a revamp of the network’s transaction fee market as well as other parameters such as gas refunds. This will have a positive impact on Ethereum’s defi usage and assist the network in realizing its enormous potential.
