August proved to be the month of the so-called Altcoin Season. This is the opening of a very recent report by the OKEx exchange that explains how most of the crypto assets in this period have gone up in price, partly due to the DeFi boom and the upcoming Ethereum 2.0.
In fact, this month there have also been double-digit price increases, with Ethereum for example exceeding $400 and trading volumes on the ETH/BTC and ETH/USDT pairs on OKEx rose over $160 million.
According to the CEO of OKEx Jay Hao, it is precisely the fact that ETH 2.0. is approaching that is causing these surges:
“For now, one of the primary limitations of Ethereum is its inability to scale and achieve mass adoption. Therefore, positive market sentiment has increased in the lead up to Ethereum 2.0. The upgrade will allow Ethereum to implement sharding and scale, which will subsequently promote the growth of decentralized applications as well as the DeFi space. OKEx is excited about the upgrade from the proof-of-work to proof-of-stake consensus. Holders of ETH on OKEx will be in a prime position to stake ETH, which will not only help maintain the network, vastly reduce energy output and help to preserve the environment, but will also earn them real ETH rewards.”
OKEx has always supported the development of the ETH ecosystem, having the fifth most important ETH mining pool. The exchange is also working with Prysmatic Labs for growth and will be one of the first validators of the Ethereum Topaz testnet.
The Altcoin Season and DeFi
Moreover, the greater prominence of the DeFi sector and its continuous records, are bringing new users to Ethereum, especially because – it is worth remembering – Vitalik Buterin’s blockchain is the most used.
In particular, the area of yield farming has exploded, bringing the locked volumes in DeFi to over 6.5 billion dollars.
And it is no coincidence that tokens like Maker (MKR) and Compound, leaders in DeFi, have increased in value:
“By managing to scale with partnerships and integration, decentralized oracles such as Chainlink and OKEx Oracle, which works with Compound’s open price feed, have provided data for DApps to handle more users and increase their consumer viability”,
continued the CEO of OKEx.
Other tokens that rose sharply during this altcoin season were Chainlink (LINK), with a growth of 1,000% in 2020, rising from $6 to $16 in mid-August.
The same goes for the price of Aave (LEND), which rose from $0.30 to $0.50, up 165%.
