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While ethereum (ETH-USD) remains the dominant blockchain in decentralized finance (DeFi), the adoption and usage of the operating system could retreat if it's unable to boost transaction speed, according to a recent note from Bank of America.

We view Ethereums long-term viability as dependent on its ability to fulfill the vision laid out in its road map, which includes implementing sharding architecture to expand its throughput capacity significantly, analyst Alkesh Shah wrote.

In the cryptocurrency world, throughput is a metric that measures how many transactions a blockchain can process per second. So, if ether's (ETH-USD) throughput isn't increased, then application developers will likely tap other blockchains to build on, he contended. So-called sharding refers to the splitting of the blockchain into smaller pieces, or "shards," to support a larger number of users.

The solana (SOL-USD) blockchain, meantime, can complete "way more transactions per second than Ethereum," Bradley Duke, co-CEO at digital asset investment firm ETC Group, told Seeking Alpha via email. But the former "has not gained greater market share of DeFi because far more people trust Ethereum to run smoothly, stay secure and keep its state data in sync than they do for Solana.

BofA's Shah explained that the smart contract-enabled platform of ether (ETH-USD) gave the blockchain a "first-mover advantage as developers building applications gravitated to it." That, in turn, led to network effects, he added, as the number of decentralized applications and users both expanded. Smart contracts are programs stored on a blockchain that automate certain actions required in an agreement (think of if-then logic).

All in, the ecosystem's early success "became a double-edged sword as the number of transactions became so large that network congestion occurred," driving up average transaction fees.

Ether (ETH-USD), changing hands at $1.76K as of Friday afternoon, has shot up 45.5% since the start of 2023 after enduring one of its worst years on record. From a year ago, the token was still down 44%, battered by a series of high-profile bankruptcies in the industry, increased regulatory scrutiny and economic uncertainty.

See why SA contributor Dhierin Bechai thinks ETH is a Buy.

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Ethereum is at risk of losing its dominant status in DeFi here's why (ETH-USD) - Seeking Alpha

For the third straight week, Ethereum [ETH] investment products failed to attract the purses of digital asset investors, CoinShares 27 March report revealed.

According to the report duly delivered by James Butterfill, the altcoin faced the same fate as that of the previous weeks, seeing a $5.2 million outflow.

However, products linked to Bitcoin [BTC] had the opposite experience as the inflow was as high as $127.5 million. Every week, CoinShares discloses the activities with respect to crypto Exchange Traded Products (ETPs) across several countries.

But before the latest report, both Bitcoin and Ethereum were on the same page. This was largely due to the instability in the traditional finance sector.

However, the trust issues with the banking sector seem to have resulted in gains for the crypto ecosystem. By and large, the overall inflow totaling $160 million was the highest since July 2022.

This hike implies that the level of trust in crypto products was high at the expense of traditional institutions offers. CoinShares was of the same view even though it admitted that the inflows were relatively low at the beginning of the previous week. The report stated:

While the inflows came relatively late compared to the broader crypto market, we believe it is due to increasing fears amongst investors for stability in the traditional finance sector.

But why has Ethereum failed to take a significant share of the input since it was the second-largest cryptocurrency in market value? Well, the long-standing investment group opined that Ethereums decline could be due to several factors. And like CoinShares opined last week, the Shanghai upgrade topped the list. The trading firm pointed out,

We believe investor jitters around the Shanghai upgrade (expected 12th April) are the most likely reason

The event, expected to happen in a few weeks, would set the grounds for staking withdrawals which could, in turn, result in selling pressure.

Besides that, recent Ethereum developments have not necessarily resulted in a positive price action. So, it could be valid that investors are being skeptic about committing funds to products related to the altcoin.

However, Bitcoin was not the only claimant with respect to improved inflow as some other altcoins joined the fray. For instance, Ripple [XRP], which outperformed several cryptocurrencies in the past week got inflows worth $1.2 million.

Polygon [MATIC], and Solana [SOL] received inflows worth $1.9 million and $4.8 million respectively.

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Ethereum suffers yet another weekly outflow, but how did BTC perform - AMBCrypto News

Ethereumis known not only as the second-biggest cryptocurrency but also as the second-generation cryptocurrency. The blockchain not only brought Decentralized Finance (DeFi) to the crypto space but also framed a target on its back following its Proof of Stake transition plan. A target that regulators have aimed and shot at repeatedly.

XRP price has kept its momentum, flashing green on the one-day timeframe as the countdown to the Ripple vs SEC lawsuit continues. The remittance token is moving in tandem with our predictionlast week, soaring by a significant margin to secure a place among the best-performing cryptocurrencies on a one-week timeframe.

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Cryptocurrencies Price Prediction: Ethereum & Ripple Asian Wrap 28 March - FXStreet

The Q1 sales figures for Ethereum and Polygon-based non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on OpenSea are on track to register the lowest monthly volume of the year so far, according to data from Dune Analytics.

Ethereum-based NFT sales on the marketplace soared to a nine-month high of $643.61 million by the end of February. However, with four days left to end the first quarter of the year, OpenSea has logged $324.30 million in Ethereum-minted NFT sales in March, representing a 50% decline in sales volume from the February high.

Following a record-breaking NFT sales volume of $109.12 million in February, sales of Polygon-based NFTs on OpenSea have experienced a sharp decline this month. Over the past 26 days, only $2.5 million in sales volume have been recorded, indicating a staggering 97% drop in sales.

The steep decline in sales volume of Ethereum and Polygon-based NFTs on OpenSea was attributed to the drop in the count of NFTs sold so far this month.

Regarding Ethereum-minted NFTs on OpenSea, 715,925 NFTs have been sold so far. This represented a 16% decline from the 853,391 total NFTs sold in February and a 37% fall from the 1.13 million total Ethereum-based NFTs sold in January.

Regarding Polygon NFTs on OpenSea, sales have plummeted by 93% this month, with only 35,064 NFTs sold compared to the 565,964 NFTs sold last month, and a 98% decline from the 1,514,895 NFTs sold in January.

Data from DappRadar revealed a steep decline in key growth metrics for leading NFT marketplace OpenSea since the year began.

For example, the count of unique active wallets that trade on the marketplace has dropped by 98% in the last 90 days. Likewise, the transactions count on OpenSea has witnessed a 99% decline during the same period.

The decline in OpenSeas dominance is attributable to the launch of Blur, which has gained significant traction since it became operational in October 2022.

According to a recent report from Glassnode, Blurs market share experienced a notable surge following the airdrop of its token on 14 February.

Before the distribution of the BLUR token, the NFT marketplace and aggregator held 48% of the NFT transfer volume across the entire market. However, the airdrop led to a significant increase in Blurs NFT transfer volume, which soared to 78% at its peak.

During the last week, Blur accounted for a significant portion of the total NFT sales volume, representing 73.8% of the market share. In contrast, OpenSea held a smaller share of 17%.

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OpenSea sees a slump in Ethereum and Polygon NFT sales; Details inside - AMBCrypto News

Bitcoin (BTC) has continued to show signs of consolidation around the US$28,000 price point in a promising sign that the impressive gains netted during the recent bout of financial turmoil could prove sticky.

BTC/USDT gained close to 2% over the weekend after closing 3% lower on Friday. At the time of writing, the pair had fallen back0.7% to US$27,750.

The past few weeks have been pretty chaotic, not just for crypto but for the broader financial sector, with numerous banking collapses in the US and Credit Suisses takeover by rival UBS.

Interest rate hikes across the UK, EU and US have also sown uncertainty, but evidently things have started to calm down in the markets.

To that end, the safe-haven rally we have seen on physical gold and bitcoin should be expected to level out too.

A marked decline in long and short futures liquidations seems to attest to this point - on Sunday, combined liquidations totalled US$18mln compared to US$100mln-plus at the height of the turmoil.

Bitcoin might see some downward pricing pressure depending on the level of profit taking, though buying support around 27k per Binances order book could act as a bottleneck.

Tensions between Coinbase and the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) shouldnt be ignored either.

The Nasdaq-listed cryptocurrency exchange received a Wells Notice from the regulator on Thursday last week, typically a sign of an impending enforcement action.

Bitcoin products are not likely to be impacted by any enforcement, but it could provide an added layer of uncertainty in the markets regardless.

Bitcoins risk-on rally levels out Source: currency.com

Ethereum (ETH) added around 1.3% over the weekend but has since ceded most of those gains this Monday morning. The ETH/USDT pair is currently trading at US$1,750.

Ripple (XRP) remains elevated above the rest of the top-20 altcoin set, and is now over 20% higher week on week.

The payment tokens stellar performance coincides with renewed hopes of a major win in the long-running SEC vs. Ripple Labs dispute over unregistered securities.

Ripple president Monica Long told CNBC last week that she is very hopeful about achieving a win; that simple statement was evidently enough to galvanise the XRP bulls.

Litecoin (LTC), which has a similar profile to XRP as a payment token, has also surged by over 10% in the past seven days.

Top overnight movers among the top-100 club include ssv.network (SSV), Rocket Pool (RPL) and Neo (NEO).

Global cryptocurrency market capitalisation added 0.3% to US$1.16tn overnight, while total value locked in the decentralised finance (Defi) space remained unchanged at US$49.1bn.

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Bitcoin and Ethereum face profit taking and Coinbase headwinds - Proactive Investors USA