What happened?
Bitcoin (CRYPTO.BTC), Ethereum(CRYPTO.ETH), and Dogecoins (CRYPTO.DOGE) have risen 6.82%, 8.6%, and 8.36% respectively in the last 24 hours. They are currently trading at $48,518.76 per coins, $3,293.94 each token and $0.3319 per piece, as of 10:30 AM EDT.
Coinbase Global (NASDAQ.COIN), second-largest cryptocurrency exchange worldwide, had earlier announced that it would add $500 million worth cryptocurrency to its balance sheets. The entire sector was whipped into high gear by the announcement. The Coinbase stock also rose 3.10% to $255.98 per Share during the same period.
What are you waiting for?
Investors are not happy with Coinbase's major move. UWM Holdings, the second-largest U.S. mortgage lender, announced that it will accept Bitcoin for home loans on Aug. 19. The company could make the adoption effective by the end the third quarter. They are also looking at adding additional cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum to the mix.
It was announced that the Ethereum 2.0 Staking Contract had become the largest Ether holder at $21.3 billion on the same day. This news demonstrates growing confidence in Ethereum Foundation's 2.0 network transition. Ethereum will have a proof of-stake protocol by 2022. The development team believes that this will reduce Ethereum's energy consumption by 99%, effectively eliminating any concerns about its environmental sustainability.
Dogecoin is gaining recognition as a once-meme digital currency. Robinhood Markets, a discount brokerage, announced that Dogecoin was responsible for 62% of the cryptocurrency revenue during the second quarter. Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum's founder, announced that he would join the Dogecoin development team as a board member.
What now?
Dogecoin is shedding its reputation for being a joke cryptocurrency. The number of merchants that accept Doge has increased by 34.7%, to 1,616 since the start of the year. Due to its mild inflationary nature, the network has also found its niche. Dogecoin miners don't have to worry about their high-tech GPU mining equipment becoming obsolete due to the rise in PoS protocols. The mining process is not so complex as to cause excessive electricity consumption.
Bitcoin's slow, outdated, and unfriendly protocol is getting an overhaul. Miners from all over the world reached a rare consensus to upgrade Bitcoin's Taproot. This will allow smart contracts to be adopted on the network. It is expected that it will take effect in November. Bitcoin doesn't have a central development team so it is up to miners to vote unanimously to upgrade the largest cryptocurrency in the world. The last one was four years ago.
Investors' fears, uncertainty and doubt regarding the sector in Q2 are rapidly melting away as new innovations begin to address these issues. It looks like the beginning of the next bull market for the cryptocurrency sector.
