Ether (ETH) led the market higher as it headed to a new all-time high of $ 1,763. The start of the ETH CME futures is planned for February 9th. Many analysts believe the top-ranked altcoin will hit $ 2,000 before encountering significant resistance.
Data from Cointelegraph Markets and TradingView shows that Ether is currently trading at $ 1,714, up 3.27% on the 24-hour chart, while Bitcoin (BTC) is up 0.21% to trade at $ 37,633 becomes.
ETH / USDT 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView
Gas fees on the Ethereum network also hit a new all-time high this week. Average transaction costs hit $ 17.5 on February 3, causing some exchanges to stop withdrawals from ETH and ERC-20.
Ethereum average gas price. Source: Etherscan
On February 4, Yearn Finance (YFI) underwent an exploit in which a hacker leaked DAI stablecoins worth $ 11 million from the DAI version 1 income vault. The team reacted quickly and took several steps to reduce the damage from the attack.
These included Tether’s freezing of $ 1.7 million in stolen funds that will be returned to the project, as well as a proposal from the MakerDAO community to create an earmarked Collateralized Debt Position (CDP) to help affected users to make a whole.
Positive news came from Protego, a Washington-based institutional crypto administrator, who announced that it is the second crypto-native company to receive a national license from the US office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
Democrats vote in favor of moving the stimulus plan forward
Shares rose on Friday as U.S. lawmakers cleared a major hurdle in the launch of the next stimulus package, which allowed those earning less than $ 50,000 a year to receive a $ 1,400 stimulus check.
Much of the major indices ended the day in the green, with the S&P 500, Dow and NASDAQ ending the day up 0.39%, 0.30% and 0.57%, respectively. Silver also returned 2.82% to close the day at $ 26.98.
Altcoins push higher
With Bitcoin trading in a range between $ 36,000 and $ 38,000, altcoins are gaining momentum and prices erupted on several coins on Friday.
Daily market performance in cryptocurrencies. Source: Coin360
MakerDAO (MKR) gained another 45% to hit a new all-time high of $ 3,099 before correcting to $ 2,810, while DeFi Infrastructure Protocol 0x (ZRX) saw price jump 61% to $ 1.63.
Notable performers of the higher cap altcoins were Cardano (ADA), up 26.44%, and Binance Coin (BNB), with a new all-time high of $ 64.87
BTC / USD daily chart. Source: Coin360
The market cap for cryptocurrencies is now at $ 1.17 trillion, and the dominance rate of Bitcoin is 60.1%.
