Five crypto tokens gain 44.35% leverage against U.S. dollar since June


Ahead of Ethereum’s The Merge and Cardano’s Vasil hard fork, the market capitalization of several top crypto tokens—Ethereum (ETH), Cardano (ADA), Bnb (BNB), Avalanche (AVAX) and Ethereum Classic (ETC)—has increased by 44.35 percent against the U.S. greenback since the end of June.

Data from CoinMarketCap showed that the combined value of those five tokens was $316 billion on September 11, raising by 1.19 percent in one day. It was reported that on June 23, the market valuation for those tokens combined was $218.9 billion.

On June 23, ETH was traded for $1,132 per unit after reaching below $1,000 on June 17, at $877 per unit. The value of ADA on the same day was $0.47 per unit, BNB’s value was $228 and AVAX was at $17.92 per unit.

Last week, ETH’s value saw an increase of 12.52 percent. At the same time ADA jumped by 2.67 percent, BNB raised by 6.05 percent, AVAX grew stronger by 8.15 percent and ETC—which showed a lower value than Chainlink (LINK)’s $6.97 per unit value on June 23—displayed the highest growth by increasing 19.34 percent of its value.

There were other tokens gaining leverage against the U.S. dollar last week as well. LiquidApps (DAPP) went up by 124.05 percent, Aergo (AERGO) showed an increased value of 118.57 percent and Enecuum (ENQ) gained 112.86 percent.

Data also showed that the decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols have also raised in total value locked since June. The total value locked on June 23 was $55.29 billion but went up to $60.26 billion on September 11, showing an 8.98 percent increase.

Nonetheless, certain tokens also lost value last week. Salt (SALT) went down by 35.82, Edgeware (EDG) showed a 13.28 percent decrease and Aurora was down 10 percent last week.

Merge, Vasil hard fork

The crypto community’s anticipation of Ethereum’s Merge and Cardano’s Vasil hard fork reportedly dove the price up. The Merge is scheduled to take place around September 14 while the Vasil hard fork will likely start on September 22.

Once the Merge is complete, the ETH’s mechanism will shift from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS). Ethereum will execute this transition by merging two blockchains, its current mainnet and the beacon chain. This change allows the network to operate more efficiently, including its use of power. The Ethereum developer said that the transition also enabled investors to have bigger yields.

Despite the benefits linked to the Merge, some experts suggested that the process will make the new blockchain more vulnerable to attacks. Attackers could start the attack on block N and then complete it on block N+1. They would not need to use an arbitrage bot to conduct the attack. This vulnerability could also jeopardize ETH’s “economic guarantees.”

Meanwhile, Cardano’s upcoming update aims to improve its Plutus programming language and facilitate better scalability for lower fees to consumers. According to Input Output Hong Kong (IOHK), a Cardano’s R&D associate, the network has reached three indicators to perform the hard fork.

“1. 75% of mainnet blocks being created by the final Vasil node candidate (1.35.3) 2. approximately 25 exchanges upgraded (representing 80% of ada liquidity) 3. top 10 DApps by TVL confirming they have upgraded to 1.35.3 on PreProduction and are ready for mainnet,” IOHK explained.