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Wrapped Bitcoin tops $1B after 900% increase in two months

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The recent DeFi bull-cycle has pushed the total value locked (TVL) of popular Bitcoin (BTC) tokenization protocol Wrapped BTC (WBTC) up by 900% to surpass $1 billion.

The milestone comes four weeks after the TVL of all Bitcoin tokenized on Ethereum (ETH) surpassed $1 billion for the first time . The current TVL of tokenized Bitcoin is nearly $1.5 billion, of which WBTC currently represents one-third.

Wrapped Bitcoin is now the fifth-largest DeFi protocol in terms of TVL, representing nearly 10% of the entire sector’s locked capital. WBTC’s TVL pushed above $100 million for the first time around July 8.

Wrapped Bitcoin 12-month TVL chart: DeFi Pulse

Wrapped Bitcoin lets users lock up BTC in exchange for WBTC — an ERC-20 token pegged to Bitcoin — which allows BTC holders to access the diverse Ethereum-powered decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem using it as collateral.

In the first half of 2020, WBTC’s TVL grew from $4 million to $36 million, demonstrating the extreme surge in demand for DeFi during the third quarter.

The DeFi bubble has also benefited other Bitcoin tokenization protocols, with Ren’s (REN) VM locking up more than $300 million worth of BTC since launching at the end of May.

RenVM lifetime TVL chart: DeFi Pulse

The price of REN has increased by roughly 180% over the same period, with the token bouncing 14% over the past 24 hours after listing on Coinbase.

Not all tokenization protocols have enjoyed sustained success, with PieDAO’s TVL recently retracing to May’s sub-$1 million levels after briefly spiking in July.

The A16z-backed Keep Network has also missed out on the spoils of the recent DeFi frenzy, with the embattled tBTC protocol coming under fire recently for liquidating Ether belonging to all users in a group who see a single signer go offline.





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Crypto enthusiasts could make $122K per year mining Ethereum with this setup

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Simon Byrne has taken at-home crypto mining to a whole new level as he looks to capitalize on Ethereum’s (ETH) enormous price potential. 

As first reported by Anthony Garreffa, Byrne has set up an ETH mining rig consisting of 78 GeForce RTX 3080 graphics cards. Although the RTX 3080 is marketed toward high-end PC gamers, crypto miners are using these powerful specs to enhance their capabilities.

With each card using roughly 300W of power, Byrne’s setup uses 23.4KW of energy. And that doesn’t even factor in associated costs like AC. All said, his electricity bill is estimated to run up to around $2,166 per month.

The RTX 3080 launched in September at a price of $699, but supply shortages have caused the per-unit cost to swell to $1,199. At the shortage price, that’s a price tag of $93,522 for Byrne’s setup.

Still, these costs could be offset by the operation’s mining capability. One GeForce RTX 3080 graphic card has a hash rate of around 83MH/s using Ethash, which should generate roughly 0.22236870 ETH per month, according to Garreffa. All 78 cards would therefore generate 17.3 ETH per month, which is equivalent to around $12,352 at today’s prices.

Stripping away the electricity costs, that’s roughly $10,200 per month or $122,000 per year. And that’s not factoring in Ethereum’s price potential during the next bull market.

Ether’s price zipped past $700 over the weekend, the first such move since mid-2018. The return of altseason, as some have predicted, could send ETH’s price even higher over the medium term as investors cycle from Bitcoin to other large-cap cryptocurrencies.