Passing the psychologically significant barrier on multiple exchanges including Coinbase, Ether (ETH) eclipsed $4,000 for the first time on May 10. Just a week after breaking $3,000 that this present milestone is coming.
As the 28th largest asset in the world, last week, ETH overtook Bank of America. As at today Ether is at $454.49 billion.
The market cap of consumer staples giants Wal-Mart and Johnson and Johnson, and is knocking at the door of JPMorgan Chase — the largest American bank by assets under management, has been eclipsed by ETH
The increasing Institutional interest, may have contributed to part of the rise. Institutions bought over $30 million in ETH at the end of April, according to CoinShares report. $13.9 billion in ETH or ETH vehicles, now being owned by Money managers.
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, which shows that there have been distinctive strides in adoption. Also, the growth of decentralized finance — one of Ethereum’s key communities and use cases — continues at a remarkable clip
However, the most bullish catalysts on the horizon are a pair of major infrastructure upgrades to the network: EIP-1559 and ETH 2.0. EIP-1559, now scheduled to be included in the “London” hard fork, will include an overhaul of the ETH fee structure and is expected to decrease gas costs significantly while also potentially making ETH a more deflationary asset.
ETH 2.0, in turn, will transition the network to a proof-of-stake consensus model, which is expected to decrease sell pressure and encourage holding the asset.