Ether is closing in on all-time highs while Bitcoin has reached above $50,000 for the first time since mid-May. ETH surged in the last week coming close to breaching the $4,000 level. The cryptoasset began the week below $3,200 but rose quickly through the week, reaching $3,981 by Friday. Over the weekend gains have flattened but remain trading in this range. A confluence of factors is contributing to the rising price of ETH. ETH burning, staking, gas fees, transactions and locked away tokens on DeFi are all working in concert to support price levels. BTC meanwhile has hit above $50,000 for the first time since mid-May. The cryptoasset started the week with falls to below $47,000 before rallying midweek above $50,000. In early trading today BTC has surged again, closing in on $52,000. ETH inflation rate down sharply The rate of inflation on cryptoasset ether (ETH) is plummeting according to crypto research firm Delphi Digital. For the first three weeks of August, according to the Delphi Digital data, ETH’s inflation rate hovered just below 3%. This rose to touch 3% around 23 August before collapsing totally by the end of the month. ETH’s inflation rate was around 0.5% as of 31 August. This is largely down to the increase in burning of ETH tokens, with some 150,000 ETH burned since the EIP 1559 ‘London hard fork’ was implemented. The downward movement of ETH’s inflation rate is indicative of earlier predictions that the cryptoa...
