Ethereum Investors Earned $76B in 2021
Ethereum, the second-largest blockchain network by market capitalization, generated nearly $76.8 billion in 2021 a little more than Bitcoin achieved. Realized gains are profits attained from investing and then selling a financial vehicle such as a stock, commodity, or cryptocurrency.
According to Chainalysis’ April 2022 report, Ethereum’s realized gains beat those derived from investing in Bitcoin’s by a “narrow” margin of almost $2 billion.
However, investors did not gain these remarkable returns by passively holding Ethereum’s native token. Instead, it’s the new range of financial products (DeFi) built on top of the network that is responsible for generating such wealth.
CoinGecko reports that the market capitalization of decentralized finance projects saw an increase of 650% from $20 billion at the beginning of 2021 to almost $150 billion by the end of the year’s last quarter. Its share of the whole market also nearly doubled from 2.8% to 6.5% in the same period.
Other blockchain platforms like Cardano, Solana, and Terra are also gradually building decentralized finance applications on their networks, but Ethereum currently controls a dominant 54.6% of the market share.
0x Token Surges 53% on Coinbase Partnership
On 21 April, 2022, ZRX, the native cryptocurrency of the 0x protocol, surged 53% to a five-month high of $1.18 following the announcement of its collaboration with the popular crypto exchange Coinbase.
According to Coinmarketcap, ZRX last reached these price levels in November 2021. As of 21 April, 2022, ZRX has a market capitalization of over $93 million, making it the 86th biggest cryptocurrency in the industry.
Coinbase has selected the 0x protocol to power its new non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace. The protocol’s transaction fees are significantly lower than other competing platforms.
0X is an open-source, decentralized exchange protocol that allows token swaps across multiple chains, including Binance Smart Chain, Polygon Fantom, and Avalanche. The 0X version 4 update introduced NFT swaps on the protocol, allowing users to trade NFTs like crypto assets. According to 0x labs, their protocol incorporates advanced smart contract capabilities, such as 54% cheaper gas costs, free listings on the protocol’s marketplaces, and creator royalties.
Bahamas Allows Tax Payment in Crypto
The government of the Bahamas is working with the central bank and the private sector to enable citizens to pay taxes with their digital assets.
Bahamas Prime Minister Philip Davis said, “We have the vision to transform the Bahamas into the digital assets hub in the Caribbean and a global leader of progressive regulation in this profoundly innovative space.”
Bahamas was the first country in the world to launch a fully developed CBDC (the Sand Dollar) back in 2020. The digital currency was created to drive greater financial inclusion across the country’s 700+ islands, and wants to see increased adoption to realize this goal.
MetaLend Raises $5M
In April 2022, MetaLend, a decentralized finance (DeFi) project acquired $5 million in seed investment in a round led by crypto investment firm Pantera Capital with participation from blockchain gaming collective Ancient8, angel investor David Choi and Sky Mavis board member Stephen Mckeon.
MetaLend seeks to provide financial services to the blockchain gaming sector of the industry also known as GameFi, which includes projects like Axie Infinity, Decentraland and Crypto Ball Z.
MetaLend is now collaborating with various gaming guilds to help them grow their business. The project will enable players to take out loans using their gaming NFTs as collateral. Additionally, players can continue using their NFTs to earn more rewards in a P2E game.
