The following are some of the ways to improve your own ability. EthereumIt seemed that 2024 was a year of both great success and little progress.
There was substantial innovation, but those just wanting to make money from investing in Ethereum's native coin ETH are a little disappointed—if the vibes on Crypto Twitter If (aka X), is anything to go on.
Dencun, a network upgrade that made transactions cheaper, was also endorsed by President-elect Donald Trump. Many believed that there would also be an SEC-style crackdown.
You will be surprised by the surprising You can also check out our Facebook page. Spot Exchange-traded Funds (ETH) The asset price did not explode like with its predecessor. Bitcoins and their counterparts.
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— naiive (@naiivememe) November 14, 2024
Even so, it was still an exciting—and noteworthy—year for the blockchain behind the second-biggest coin in crypto. Here's a look back at how it all went down.
Regulatory Crackdown
Rumors are circulating in April. started swirling The SEC may be pursuing Ethereum as a whole after the Ethereum Foundation revealed that it had been investigated by an authority.
Consensys, the software giant and Wall Street’s leading regulator, was one of the 22 investors who invested in Ethereum. Decrypt( ) went to war.
Consensys was hit with a Wells notification, warning the firm of a pending lawsuit due to securities violations. This involved its popular Ethereum wallet MetaMask. Consensys retaliated with a Preemptive action SEC – a SEC slam?
The firm claimed that for more than a full year the agency secretly considered ETH a securities. “would punish Consensys for accepting and acting in reliance on years of government assurance that ETH is not a security.”
SEC sued Consensys MetaMask Swaps and Staking, a company that offers and sells securities via its MetaMask Swaps and Staking service without registering the transaction.
Consensys was sued in a lawsuit. Thrown out A judge will decide the case in September. Trump’s win has both been good and bad: the SEC will Have a new crypto-friendly chairman if Trump's pick Paul Atkins is confirmedConsensys was forced to reduce its employee base by 20 percent in October. Firm cited lawsuits and aggressive regulations as part of its reasoning.
Impact of ETFs
After the expected approval and huge debut trading months of the spot Bitcoin ETFs, industry observers didn’t think Ethereum would get the same green light—at least not right away—because the regulator wasn’t clear on whether the asset was a security or commodity.
In a surprising move, however, the SEC approved. Two months after the initial approvals were made, spot ETFs started trading in July. The ETH rate didn’t rise, and the market seemed dejected.
Bitcoin prices have reached new highs after highs due to the Bitcoin ETF approval. ETH, on the other hand, hasn’t had such good luck: as of this writing it still has a significant gap to close in order to break its previous record set by $4,878 back in 2021.
Even if Ethereum's price didn’t take off like a rocket, the approval of the ETFs delivered one important win: The SEC stopped calling ETH a securit.
Although previously You can say that The asset in question was purchased by the company on 2018 It is not clear how to get there. a security, outgoing SEC Chair Gary Gensler for years refused to answer on where the coin stood—and he hit crypto company after crypto company with lawsuits for allegedly selling unregistered securities.
The approval of ETFs shows that, in essence, the regulator agreed that this asset is sufficiently decentralized to be considered a non-security. This came with Wall Street recognition of ETH and its blockchain as an asset class—even if traditional finance has I had a difficult time Understanding the value proposition of Ethereum
There was some positive momentum generated by the big names such as BlackRock’s Larry Fink. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink kicked off this year with a bang. You can say that He saw “value” It was said that the Ethereum ETF would be a step towards “tokenization.”
The asset manager was in charge of the assets during March. launched “BUIDL”—a tokenized fund running on Ethereum—and then later joined the fray with its own spot ETF.
Trump himself is a proponent of ETH
Donald Trump, the President-elect Donald Trump has been campaigning hard to win America. “crypto capital of the planet.”
As part of his digital asset-focused agenda, he helped launch a project running on… you guessed it, Ethereum.
First Teased World Liberty Financial was founded by Eric’s son in August. Decentralized finance—or DeFi—is the crypto sphere that wants to make taking out a loan or lending automatic and easy via blockchain-based protocols.
Most DeFi projects are built upon Ethereum, so it’s not a huge surprise that the Trump team went with the project, but still—it was big news for the community. The team behind WLF said that it will offer crypto borrowing and lending services in an exclusive interview. Decrypt’s Rug Radio is a sister company.
The project was launched, and it had an initial success. Launch of tokens is a slow process—open only to accredited investors—but it’s still early days. The sources tell Decrypt that Team Trump also has plans to launch a native stablecoin, though it's a crowded market indeed.
The second layer takes over
On the technical side of things, Ethereum got cheaper too—much cheaper. It’s a network. Dencun upgrade Layer-2 network transaction costs have been slashed. Such networks enable faster and cheaper transactions than on mainnet, and Dencun's addition of "proto-danksharding" The technology has cut costs further for the users.
That's the good news. On the flip side, rising use of L2s has drawn value away from layer-1 Ethereum, which some in the crypto space believe is responsible for Ethereum's sagging price performance this year.
Matthew Sigel of VanEck’s Digital Assets Research said back in October, that Ethereum would not succeed if it didn’t get a reputable blockchain. "model change," he projects that ETH's price will only hit $7,300 by 2030—as opposed to $22,000 under previous projections.
There are two types of Layer-2 Networks: "taking more value from Ethereum" He said that the future is brighter than expected. Luckily, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin and others in the space are considering changes, such as fee-sharing models, that can provide more balance to the ecosystem so L2s don't become overly extractive.
Stacy Elliott, Andrew Hayward and Stacy Elliott edited the book