The Ethereum protocol has reached another milestone as the number of Ethereum 2.0 validators has surpassed 300,000. At the time of writing, the Ethereum 2.0 contract has over 9.6 million ether deposited worth more than $28.4 billion.

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It’s getting cheaper to send ethereum these days as the gas price to push a transaction is more than 80% less expensive than it was to transact with ether 48 days ago on January 10. On that day, Ethereum network fees were around $52 per transaction and today, the average transaction fee is $10.26 per transfer.

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Following yesterday’s rally in crypto, prices consolidated on Wednesday, as markets were once again fearful of escalating tensions between Russia and Ukraine. The uncertainty came as NATO reported that Russia was increasing troops on the border, as opposed to sending some home.

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The blockchain project Polygon announced it has raised $450 million on Monday in a fundraising round led by Sequoia Capital India with participation from more than 40 venture capital firms. Polygon says that the money will allow the team to help scale Ethereum and bolster the mass adoption of Web3 applications.

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Ethereum’s co-founder, Vitalik Buterin, and developer Tim Beiko have been discussing a proposed solution to the data transfer gas problem and current scaling issues. Buterin talked about adding a feature like “blob-carrying transactions” in a “near-future hard fork.”

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A group of cypherpunks recently initiated a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) in order to try and free the incarcerated Wikileaks founder and activist Julian Assange. So far, the DAO has raised $7.5 million in ether and the funds will be used to help with Assange’s legal fees and raise public awareness about his case.

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Following two consecutive sessions of declines, cryptocurrencies rebounded on Friday, as markets prepared for the first non-farm payrolls of the year. ETH was up 8% as of writing, with the crypto market cap 4.4% higher.

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Reports indicate that the Wormhole Network’s ethereum ↔ solana bi-directional bridge has been exploited by an attacker for *120,000 ether or more than $320 million using today’s ethereum exchange rates. The developers behind the Wormhole Network have told the public the network is “down for maintenance,” as the team “looks into a potential exploit.”

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According to statistics, Ethereum network transaction fees have dropped 35% from the transfer fees recorded seven days ago. At the time of writing, the average fee to transact with ethereum is 0.0099 ether or $30.85 to $33.04 per transfer.

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Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin set up a pair of polls on Twitter asking his followers if 80% of all transactions and savings in the year 2035 are in one currency and it is not ether, which currency they would prefer it to be. He asked them to choose from a number of cryptocurrencies including bitcoin, cardano, solana, tron, and Binance coin.

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The blockchain-powered game Axie Infinity has been a very popular application during the last 12 months, as the game’s NFTs have outpaced every NFT collection today in terms of all-time sales. While Axie Infinity has seen $3.85 billion in all-time sales, Nansen researcher Martin Lee recently published a report on how Ronin, Axie Infinity’s sidechain, has seen exponential growth.

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With three days left until the end of 2021, the Ethereum network and its native token ether have had a phenomenal year as ether has increased more than 450% in value in 12 months. 145 days ago, on August 5, the Ethereum network implemented the London hard fork and since that day, 1,283,226 ether worth close to $5 billion has been burned.

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20 days ago, Ethereum’s network participants upgraded the protocol and implemented the Arrow Glacier upgrade. The move delayed Ethereum’s “Ice Age” proof-of-stake (PoS) transition for another six months and this week, the network’s hashrate tapped all-time highs. For the first time, statistics within the six-month range indicate Ethereum’s hashrate surpassed 1 petahash per second (PH/s).

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In recent times the Ethereum network has received a lot of criticism about the protocol’s data transfer fees and scalability. In a blog post called “Endgame,” published on December 6, the co-founder of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin discussed plans to improve scaling, the upcoming proof-of-stake transition, and censorship resistance.

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While there’s been an awful lot of calls for bitcoin to reach six-digits in value in 2021, as the end of the year draws closer, it doesn’t seem like $100K per bitcoin will happen. Bitwise Asset Management’s chief investment officer Matt Hougan told the press on Monday that “$100,000 by the end of the year is a difficult prediction to make.”

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A recent paper authored by members of several universities, including Sydney and Macquarie, argues that recent changes in Ethereum monetary policy are making it a better store of value than bitcoin. The deflationary effect that the EIP-1559 proposal has caused in the issuance of the currency is said to be the main cause of this.

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The second-largest cryptocurrency in terms of market capitalization, ethereum, has come awfully close to reaching the digital asset’s all-time high ($4,878) it reached 21 days ago on November 10. While bitcoin dominance has slid below the 40% zone, ethereum’s market dominance, or $557 billion market valuation, represents close to 20% of the crypto economy.

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The second leading crypto asset ethereum has been dealing with high fees since the end of June and today the average ethereum transaction fee is between $5 and $34 per transfer.

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The Nigerian startup behind the social payment app for cryptocurrency and fiat, Kurepay, says the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)’s current crackdown on crypto entities has forced it to suspend operations in Nigeria.

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With the ETH 2.0 upgrade still months, if not years, from a full launch, third-generation blockchain protocols are quickly racing up to dethrone Ethereum as the “go-to” hub for dapps and defi.

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The Ethereum Name Service (ENS), the entity that controls the decentralized domains built on top of Ethereum, announced it would pivot to a decentralized governance model, opening the door to the formation of a DAO (decentralized autonomous organization).

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On November 5, Bakkt Holdings announced that the firm will soon let customers buy, sell, and store ethereum after offering bitcoin only since the company’s launch. The firm notes that adding ethereum comes at a time when digital currency interest and adoption continue to see significant growth.

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On November 2, 2021, the Ethereum network’s global hashrate tapped an all-time high (ATH) at 873 terahash per second (TH/s) or close to 1 petahash. Alongside Ethereum’s ATH, a myriad of hashrates have returned back to the highs the network’s once held before the crypto mining crackdown in China.

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Following the Altair upgrade on the Ethereum network, the protocol’s native cryptocurrency reached a new all-time price high. Altair is the next step for the Ethereum’s network’s proof-of-stake (PoS) transition.

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Nine days ago, bitcoin reached a new all-time high (ATH) and now the second leading crypto asset ethereum has tapped an ATH on Friday morning. Ethereum reached a high of $4,416 per unit and has since retreated around 2% down from that price position.

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At the end of July, the product comparison website Finder.com published its research findings from a panel of experts that predicted the crypto asset ethereum would reach $4.5K this year. On October 25, Finder updated its “Ethereum Price Predictions Report” that polled 50 financial technology specialists and ethereum is now expected to reach “$5,114 by the end of this year.”

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After bitcoin reached its all-time high (ATH) on Wednesday, the second-largest crypto asset in terms of market capitalization, ethereum, is nearing its own ATH. The last time the crypto asset hit an ATH was five months ago on May 12.

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One of the biggest asset managers in Brazil, Kinea, disclosed it made an exploratory investment in Ethereum. The announcement was made by Marco Aurélio Freire, manager of funds for Kinea, who stated the company had invested a small amount of its holdings in ethereum starting two months ago.

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On September 8, 2021, Dmitriy Berenzon, research partner at 1kxnetwork, an early-stage crypto fund that helps founders bootstrap token networks, published a comprehensive research post concerning blockchain bridges. Berenzon’s study highlights the current “multi-chain market structure” and bridges that are making a myriad of blockchains compatible.

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A report published by the British bank Standard Chartered indicates the company’s analysts are bullish about the crypto asset ethereum. The bank’s analysts think that bitcoin could reach $175K and said “structurally, we ‘value’ ethereum at $26,000-$35,000.”

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