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Ether, while still about 20% away from an all-time high, has been accelerating in recent days, relative to bitcoin.
All quiet on the bitcoin front, as BTC has traded in a 2% range over the past 24 hours.
Ether, on the other hand, has pushed well past its Wednesday high of $3,900, and looks poised to crack above $4,000 for the first time since late December 2021.
Most of Friday’s market leaders are once again in the memecoin category, with 20% or more moves higher from FLOKI, WIF and PEPE.
A smattering of political-themed memes are doing well in the wake of President Biden’s State of the Union speech, none of which came near the crypto industry. Read into that what you will.
As a category, Options protocols are surging, up 23% alongside fractionalized NFTs.
Over the past week, the market capitalization of the DeFi sector exceeded $100 billion for the first time since May 2022. This sector, now increasingly known as Onchain Finance, holds the distinction of being crypto’s largest single category by number of tokens.
The resurgence comes as the collective TVL of DeFi similarly knocks on the door of the $100 billion mark, up 44% since the start of the year.
Much of that can be attributed to the rise of ether (ETH) — up 40% year-to-date — which accounts for the lionshare of value locked in the top 4 protocols: Lido, EigenLayer, Aave and Maker.
DeFi TVL remains $90 billion away from its November 2021 all-time high of $189 billion.
Bitcoin (BTC) may have yet to retest Tuesday’s all-time mark above $69,000, but Coinbase (COIN) has continued to press higher in the intervening days.
It’s set to open right at Thursday’s closing price of $242.63 as of 8:00 am ET.
Source: Macauley Peterson – blockworks.co