Nine of the top ten decentralized finance projects operate on the Ethereum network

While BTC's jump above $ 10,000 captured most of the crypto market's attention, Ethereum (ETH) performance in recent days has been preponderant . In the last week, the reference altcoin grew almost 40%, while today it reached USD 320 after a 3% rebound.

The growth of ETH finds consolidated earnings from many decentralized finance tokens (DeFi) as one of its main causes . Considering that nine of the top ten DeFi projects operate on Ethereum, many of these assets fell from their highs reached a few weeks ago, with losses ranging from 10% to 30%.

On the other hand, specialists suggest that other factors that explain the increase in ETH have to do with the growth of the positive image of Ethereum as a technology . Visa's announcement to create applications on the network and the recent failure of the United States declaring Bitcoin as "money" were also important news that brought cryptocurrencies closer to traditional investors.

While activity on the Ethereum network recently hit record highs , altcoin had not shown bullish behavior so far this year. By the end of June, the volume of transactions on the blockchain increased more than 60%.

While some crypto commentators pointed out the similarities of the trends with the ETH rally between 2017 and 2018, others opened the spectrum of the analysis towards factors that allow us to understand the current scenario a little more. Although the growth in the second quarter was considerable (+ 70%) , it was still a recovery from the blow suffered by all markets in mid-March , following the spread of COVID-19 and the start of the crisis.

The increase in transaction fees to a maximum of two years - higher than BTC for the first time in history - is due to the increasing prominence of DeFi tokens and stablecoins . In this way, the ETH network became the most used on the market, with a settlement of more than 508 billion dollars so far in 2020.