Ethereum, Tezos Start New Week as Top Weekly Performers
The two major smart contract platforms Ethereum (ETH) and Tezos (XTZ) are both seeing a strong performance of their native tokens, each rising by almost 20% over the past 7 days before correcting some of their gains on Monday.
In what has been a stellar week for ETH, the second most valuable cryptoasset by market capitalization and by far the most used smart contract platform, prices rose by 14% over the past 7 days to USD 179 as of press time on Monday (11:55 UTC). Meanwhile, XTZ saw similar gains of 14% over the same time period, trading at USD 2.23 as of press time.
By comparison, bitcoin (BTC) rose by more than 3% over the same time period, while other top coins like bitcoin cash (BCH) and litecoin (LTC) each advanced by around 2%.
For ethereum’s part, the gains have been registered ahead of the highly anticipated release of Ethereum 2.0’s “Phase 0,” which Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has previously said will launch “at some point in the summer” of this year.
This has also been pointed to by some industry observers, including Adam Cochran, a partner at the community-run investment DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) MetaCartel Ventures, who recently shared a Twitter thread with his 7 top reasons for why Ethereum 2.0 “could prove to be the largest economic shift in society.” Among other things, Cochran pointed to things like the new proof-of-stake rewards attracting investors who are seeking attractive returns on their capital, “whale’s buying cycles,” as well as retail FOMO (fear of missing out) driving prices higher.
In addition, ETH is also among the cryptoassets that have seen an accumulation of tokens by the largest holders. This is a trend that is still holding up for Ethereum, although at a slightly lower pace than earlier in the month.
From a charting standpoint, ETH also looks bullish at the moment, with the overall uptrend formed from its low on March 13 still intact. The bullish trend has persisted despite a crossing of the important 50 and 200-day moving averages, forming a so-called “death cross” in the chart on April 11.
Moving over to Tezos, the rise in price over the past week may have been partially related to news announced last week that Pennsylvania-based consulting firm Advantage Blockchain and digital transfer agent Vertalo has teamed up with Overstock’s blockchain subsidiary tZERO to tokenize USD 300 million in real estate on the Tezos blockchain. The news was reported shortly after tZERO announced that it has added support for the Tezos blockchain, saying that multiple token issuers in their pipeline “have expressed interest in leveraging the Tezos blockchain.”
Since the massive crypto market sell-off on March 12 and 13, Tezos has now risen by 120% from its low of USD 1.01, and is currently trading in an uptrend above both its 50 and 200-day moving average lines.
