2021: Year when Ether came of age!
In this article, Neeraj Khandelwal, Co-Founder & CTO of CoinDCX talks about the growing popularity of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology.
Just as e-mail is one of the many useful applications of the internet and iPhones are counted among the popular smartphones; similarly, Ethereum & Bitcoin comes under the major applications supported by blockchain technology.
As the digital economy booms, volumes & values of some cryptocurrencies such as Ether (ETH) are rising rapidly, and so are investors’ appetite across the world. Ether has recorded a 440.20 per cent increase in its value since the beginning of 2021.
Ether, the digital currency on the Ethereum platform, is increasingly used as digital tokens to pay for services and transaction fees by application developers. Ether acts as a blockchain supercomputer across thousands of decentralised finance (DeFi) application systems. A growing number of users opt for Ether nowadays because its DeFi applications allow developers to build & launch decentralised applications that can run on a distributed computing system. It also enables them to create their own cryptocurrencies.
DeFi is a global financial system for transacting cryptocurrencies that allows any user with an internet connection to access financial services. It enables users to develop, own and maintain their crypto assets all by themselves without any interference, unlike the traditional banking systems. Additionally, with DeFi, the markets are always open across the globe. Ether’s popularity can be attributed to the building of DeFi applications on the Ethereum platform by an increasing number of blockchain developers.
Moreover, your Ether assets can be represented, traded, and used as non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The NFTs are secured by the Ethereum blockchain - no one can modify the record of ownership or copy/paste a new NFT into existence. In short, NFTs are digitally unique. Two NFTs will never be identical, giving the NFT a real ownership value and making Ether one of its kind.
Today, Ether has a total worth of nearly $83 billion globally. Ether is taking centre stage as the number of volunteers (also called nodes) using the Ethereum platform has increased to over 5,431 across the globe.
The rise in the Ether value is due to the increasing demand from retail investors, millennials and Gen-Z along with the day-to-day surge in acceptance among international investors. Ether is driven by increased demand and supply across various cryptocurrency exchanges, with a further rise in its value expected in the wake of more value-locking of applications on the Ethereum platform.
Notably, in 2021, Ether currency has seen all-time highs in its returns compared to Bitcoin. With a growing number of investors showing interest in cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology, further growth is expected for Ether. The multipurpose nature of Ethereum, with its rising popularity, anticipates an increase in Ether ‘value’ in the coming months. However, from a retail investor’s viewpoint, it would be prudent to observe the price movement of Ether in the short term and look for signs of consolidation before taking any new positions for investments. Investors, who have already bet on Ether during the beginning of the current surge can, however, hold their positions to protect profits in case of increased volatility.