Chainalysis CEO Michael Gronager says that fundamental changes in Ethereum are contributing to the growth of other crypto assets, particularly in one subsector.
In an interview on Bloomberg Technology, the head of the blockchain data platform explains that Ethereum (ETH) has seen large price appreciation over the past few weeks largely due to protocol changes and growth in the network, as well as decentralized finance (DeFi).
“Basically we see Bitcoin…we’ve seen Ethereum grow a lot over the last couple of weeks, and then about a month ago we saw bigger platform changes to Ethereum. The network got stabilized [and] got better in various ways. So I think that facilitated more trust in Ethereum as a whole.
On top of that, we’ve seen the trend of DeFi that’s been growing and growing…that’s been pumping the interest in Ethereum, and Ethereum is then dragging along a lot of the other cryptocurrencies with it.”
According to DeFi Pulse, 120 of the largest DeFi platforms reside on Ethereum, highlighting the correlation between the emerging crypto subsector and the leading smart contract protocol. DeFi Pulse also shows that the total value locked in the decentralized finance space is currently at an all-time high, closing in on $100 billion.
Along with Chainalysis, Gronager is also co-founder of the crypto exchange platform Kraken. The interviewer notes how Kraken CEO Jesse Powell sees a bullish future ahead for Bitcoin, predicting a breach past $100,000 before the end of the year.
When asked if Gronager shares Powell’s same bullish sentiment about Bitcoin and the overall crypto market, he agrees and adds that $100,000 could just be a pit stop before pushing to even higher prices.
“I would say that for most of the cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin, Ethereum, the more stable ones, we’re definitely seeing a trend where they grow year over year, and sometimes they grow faster than others. Sometimes it’s a bull market. Sometimes it’s a bear market. In the bear market, a lot of interesting things are being built and that basically facilitates a new bull market.
So yes, I think we are still in the bull market. I think that we can see above $100,000 by the end of the year. So I would be bullish on that as well. Long term, yeah, I would probably usually say ‘Moon is the limit.’ We can go beyond [$100,000] as well so that we can see way higher prices for all of those assets.”
Currently, Bitcoin is trying to push beyond the $50,000 level, trading at $49,780.
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