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Ether Rises 8% Amid Slumping Bitcoin Dominance
Fed Chair Jerome Powell said bitcoin is competing against gold, not the U.S. dollar, in an appearance on Wednesday.
Dec 4, 2024, 8:25 p.m.
What to know:
- Ether is benefiting from capital inflows reminiscent of 2021.
- Bitcoin and Solana are both losing dominance.
- Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell shared his thoughts on bitcoin and crypto at the DealBook Summit.
Having long lagged behind bitcoin (BTC) in terms of price action, ether (ETH) saw some solid gains on Wednesday, rising 8% to over $3,880 in the last 24 hours.
The second largest cryptocurrency’s price benefitted from $800 million worth of shorts closing their positions, according to Tom Dunleavy, a partner at venture studio Master Global. But it’s also profiting from a capital influx reminiscent of the 2021 bull market, CoinDesk Senior Analyst James Van Straten pointed out.
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Bitcoin’s dominance peaked on Nov. 21 at 61.85% and has since slumped to 54.84%, Van Straten noted. Solana’s dominance has also tanked. “BTC has stayed flat, so ETH is playing catch up,” Van Straten said.
That also explains why so many coins in the CoinDesk 20 — an index of the top 20 cryptocurrencies, excluding stablecoins, memecoins, and exchange coins — are performing so well. While the index itself is only up 1.83% today (weighed down by bitcoin’s lackluster 1.52% gain), Ethereum Classic (ETC), Filecoin (IOU), Polkadot (DOT) and Uniswap (UNI) have surged 22%, 18%, 17% and 16% respectively over the past 24 hours.
Bitcoin did not strongly react to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s comments at The New York Times’ DealBook Summit. Powell only briefly touched on inflation, stating that the U.S. central bank can afford to act cautiously in its search for fiscal neutrality, before CNBC host Andrew Ross Sorkin asked him whether bitcoin’s rise was due to investor fears about the fate of the U.S. dollar.
“People use bitcoin as a speculative asset,” Powell said. “It’s like gold, only it’s virtual, it’s digital. People aren’t using it as a form of payment or as a store of value. It’s highly volatile. It’s not a competitor for the dollar, it’s really a competitor for gold.”
Powell further stated that when it came to the integration of crypto in the financial system, the priority was to safeguard the health and stability of the banking system, alongside consumer protection.
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What to know:
- As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
- GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
- Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.
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Bitcoin Faces Japan Rate Hike: Debunking The Yen Carry Trade Unwind Alarms, Real Risk Elsewhere
Speculators maintain net bullish positions in the yen, limiting scope for sudden JPY strength and mass carry unwind.
What to know:
- Impending BOJ rate hike largely priced in; Japanese bond yields near multi-decade highs.
- Speculators maintain net bullish positions in the yen, limiting scope for sudden yen strength.
- BOJ tightening may contribute to sustained upward pressure on global yields, impacting risk sentiment.
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