By
Temitope Olatunji
April 18th, 2024
Ethereum exchanged hands at around $2,400, having dropped approximately 1.1 percent in the last 24 hours.
Ethereum (ETH) hash rate has scaled to a new all-time high according to data provided by Glassnode. Additionally to the Ethereum hash rate, the mining difficulty is at its peak, as the ecosystem prepares to migrate to the Proof-of-stake concept. Both figures significantly increased over the past year following the bull market that began in late 2020.
Ethereum mining business has proved to be a successful venture since the asset outpaced Bitcoin in returns over the past few years.
Moreover, miners are accumulating more Eth units before the ecosystem fully migrates to the proof-of-stake concept. Meanwhile, the Eth ecosystem continues to rely on miners to secure its system from attacks, including 51 percent attacks.
Notably, the Eth community is, however, embracing the Beacon chain that entails staking of assets to secure the ecosystem. According to Etherscan.org, 288246 validators have an average balance of 33.49 Eth. Out of 119,345,104 units of Ethereum, 9,217,394 ETH units have already been staked to ensure a successful transition to the proof-of-stake concept.
The amount of energy consumed by the crypto mining industry has been a topic of discussion by global regulators. In fact, it has divided most of the superpowers based on the regulations.
“The energy required to validate just one Ethereum transaction could power a US home for more than a week, the energy required for a Bitcoin transaction could power a home for more than 70 days,” House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone (D-NJ) highlighted in a recent committee Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee.
On the other hand, the Russian administration has recently announced that its cheap electricity could be used to mine crypto assets. The division has trickled down to other countries that are allied to the superpowers.
Ethereum and the Crypto Market
According to market data provided by CoinGecko, Ethereum exchanged hands at around $2,400, having dropped approximately 1.1 percent in the last 24 hours. The asset has a market capitalization of $287,564,650,563 and its 24-hour trading volume stands at approximately $22 billion.
However, Eth still stands as the DeFi king despite the emergence of many smart contract-based blockchains including Solana. The asset is up approximately 92% in the past year but has lost approximately 36%, 36%, and 20% in the last 30 days, 14 days and seven days respectively through Thursday.
The Ethereum ecosystem is, however, under tight scrutiny after the SEC declared all crypto that raised money as securities. Moreover, data provided by DeFi Pulse indicates Eth leads in the total value locked in the DeFi ecosystem.