by Alex Clark
BTC was up 1.5% over the weekend, though with a 5% range and, after some weakness on Sunday, it is currently pressing close to the top of the range for the last few weeks at $58,532. ETH was up 11.5% over the weekend, shattering its ATH to hit $4,140 and closing in on 50% of BTC’s market cap. Since the beginning of this year, Ethereum has risen 460% versus Bitcoin which has only managed 105%. Part of Ethereum’s rise may be linked to increasing institutional interest in the asset. For example, a Coinshares report said that institutions bought over $30 billion in ETH at the end of April and last week the European Investment Bank announced that they would be issuing a $120 million bond on the world’s largest layer-1 in collaboration with major banking entities such as Goldman Sachs. Additionally, the growth of DeFi — one of Ethereum’s key communities and use cases — continues at a remarkable clip. Ethereum is not the only crypto asset making solid gains this morning. Binance Coin (BNB) continues to build on momentum as it adds a further 4% on the day to reach $674; Litecoin has jumped 16% to hit an all-time high of $410; Cardano (ADA) also looks strong, reaching an ATH of $1.82 on Sunday; and Polkadot (DOT) has added another 5% to close in on $42. In contrast, Dogecoin (DOGE) is currently sliding from its Saturday ATH of $0.74. After news that Elon Musk would be hosting Saturday Night Live this weekend, price expectations and excitement surrounding Doge rocketed, but Musk disappointed and Doge’s price slid from $0.74 pre-episode to $0.41 after the show. Although, Doge’s price has recovered reasonably well to the $0.53 level after being bought back aggressively by the retail sector. Despite its weak performance, Dogecoin is still going to the moon, after SpaceX made the decision to accept DOGE as payment from Geometric Energy Corporation to launch a Dogecoin-themed rocket to the moon. Morgan Creek Capital Management founder and CEO believes Bitcoin’s next market cycle could see the asset rival gold by market capitalization and trade for at least $235,000. Marathon Digital Holdings’ miners have started censoring bitcoin transactions. The Marathon Mining Pool refrains from processing transactions from those listed on the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List (SDN)” in order to stay “compliant with U.S. regulatory standards”. This is a controversial practice that goes against the Bitcoin ethos, given that Satoshi designed Bitcoin mining to facilitate permissionless and censorship resistant transfers of value. It should be noted that nothing in the current U.S. regulatory or legal code explicitly mandates that practice for miners. Two unrelated cryptocurrency projects have collectively raised over $3 million for charitable contributions this month, underscoring the potential of digital assets in aiding mission-based non-profits around the world. Elongate, a cryptocurrency project that began as a parody of Elon Musk’s reference to the Watergate scandal, has raised $2 million so far and DeFi project, Munch, has raised over $1 million in Ethereum in just 14 days by charging 10% transaction fees on every buy and sell order made on its platform.
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