What is Driving Ethereum’s Coin Price through the roof?
Ethereum (ETH) or Ether prices are going through the roof. The number two cryptocurrency’s Coin Price cleared $1,000 for the first time, rising to $1,116.11 or 0.067 Bitcoin (BTC) on January 7, 2018, according to Coin Market Cap.
That gave Ethereum a Market Capitalization of $10.8 billion (6.93 million BTC), and a Market Volume of $5.179 billion (311,149 BTC) on 7 January 2018, according to Coin Market Cap.
The Ethereum numbers provided by Coinbase were slightly lower but equally astounding. Coinbase gave Ether a Coin Price of $1,077.64 (0.0644 BTC) on 7 January 2018. Coinbase data indicates Ethereum’s Coin Price by $611.46 (0.0365 BTC) or 131.16% between December 7, 2017, and 7 January 2018.
What is driving Ethereum’s Price Increase?
Several factors are driving Ether’s astounding growth, the biggest is Bitcoin’s Coin Price which took a nose dive in December.
Coinbase reported that Bitcoin hit a high of $19,810.33 (17.73164881 ETH on December 17, 2017, and plummeted to $12,510.16 (11.197 ETH) on December 22 – just five days later. That crash undoubtedly scared a lot of Bitcoin owners into selling and buying the more stable Ethereum.
There are other unseen factors pushing Ether; the biggest of which of is all the ERC20 Ethereum-based Initial Cryptocurrency Offerings (ICOs), cryptocurrencies, and tokens out there. They are fueling a major investment bubble that is just getting started.
The ERC20 Bubble is Driving Ethereum’s Coin Price
One way this happens that speculators buy ERC20 tokens; which can be redeemed in Ethereum at a discount during a company’s presale or ICO. Then they sell the tokens when Ethereum prices are going up.
Another is that all the tokens simply increase the use of and interest in Ethereum. This often occurs because of the publicity that some ERC20 tokens are receiving. UnikoinGold (UKG) has received a lot of attention because Shark Tank star; and speculative presidential candidate, Mark Cuban is an investor in the company that issued it – Unikrn.
UnikoinGold had a Coin Price of $1.66 (0.00154 ETH) on 7 January 2018, Coin Market Cap reported. That gave it a Market Capitalization of $222.962 million (206,991 ETH) and a Market Volume of $66.999 million on 7 January 2018. Those figures were based on a circulating supply of 134.256 million.
Is Gambling Driving Ethereum’s growth?
Unikrn; a sports-betting platform, received even more favorable publicity by getting a gaming license on Malta in October 2017, Coinbase reported. Since Malta is a member of the European Union that means bettors in a wide swath of the EU can now place wagers on Unikrn.
Malta an island republic in the Mediterranean Sea best known as the site of several historic battles is a center of online gambling. Another island the Isle of Man located between Great Britain and Ireland is another hotbed of digital gambling and the home of the world’s first legal cryptocurrency casino.
The growth in UnikoinGold indicates that gambling might be driving Ethereum’s growth. If ERC20 becomes the protocol of choice for blockchain casinos, Ether’s Coin Price might skyrocket.
Expect similar growth when other ERC20-enabled businesses such as e-commerce sites, hedge funds run by artificial intelligence (AI) and energy trading firms come online. Since Ethereum is a full-blown ecosystem with an almost unlimited number of potential uses, possibilities for its growth might rival those of the internet. As with the internet that growth will take time and it will be really painful; a lot of people are going to lose money to ERC20 pump and dump scams in 2018.
Expect more governments to try to tax, regulate, and ban Ethereum as the growth of online gaming continues. Al, o expect high Ethereum Coin Prices and some sort of correction this year.
These Events might lead to Sky High Ethereum Prices
Two events that might drive Ether Coin Prices sky high might occur in 2018. The first would be the creation of an ERC20-based national cryptocurrency and crypto-asset exchange in Estonia, a Baltic republic that is an EU member. Both projects are on the drawing board and have strong government support in the country. For more detail watch Kaspar Korjus’s blogs at the Republic of Estonia’s e-Residency Medium page.
The other disruptive event would be the mainstream media suddenly realizing that Ethereum exists and is incredibly valuable. This might take some time because most journalists are hardly aware of cryptocurrency’s existence, and those that do think Bitcoin is the only altcoin. Something to remember is that nobody ever lost money by betting on the ignorance, short-sightedness, gullibility, and incredulity of mainstream journalists.
How the Mainstream Media will Discover Ethereum
Since explaining what Ethereum is to journalists will be tough this will take some time. My prediction the mainstream reporters will start asking what Ethereum is when Mark Cuban starts talking about it on CNBC and Shark Tank.
Another likely scenario is that the media will discover Ethereum when they notice it has an incredibly high Coin Price. A likely event in the next few months will be a business reporter sent to interview the “Bitcoin millionaire.” The reporter will become incredibly confused when the millionaire explains; “I don’t own any Bitcoin, all of my money is in Ethereum.”
The journalist’s education will begin with the words, “what’s Ethereum?” We will be hearing that a lot in coming weeks.
