In a significant development, DeFi TVL has gotten past $21 billion as a record 6.8M ETH now occupy financial smart contracts. Ethereum itself has recorded gains of 8.3% over the last 24 hours and a massive 62.4% over the last week, as the largest smart contracts platform in the world hovers at $1200. It briefly crossed the psychological barrier earlier and is fast gearing up to cross it's previous all time high value of $1200. The overall market condition and sentiment is now highly suggestive of an alt-season, as most major crypto-projects are showing double-digit gains. Ethereum Price Performance 31 DEC to 07 JAN - CoinGeckoEthereum's recent price rise can be attributed to the mass reduction in available circulating supply, as users rush in to lock their ETH supply into DeFi smart contracts and Eth2 Genesis Phase 0 validators. Against 524,288 ETH required for the Eth2 launch, there is currently 2.2M ETH deposited into the genesis contract, which means that the nascent Eth2 is being secured by over $2B of value! Ethereum Staked In Eth2 Genesis Contract - Ethereum LaunchpadAlt-season also seems to be on the horizon also, as most major crypto assets are showing double digit gains. Leading the pack in the first 100 cryptos by market capitalization is Nano, which has recorded a 61.8% gain in the last 24 hours. It is closely followed by Stellar (66.4%), Verge (47.2%), Status (44%) and Maker (33.4%). Amongst the sea of red, old time favorites seem to be giving the way to new market entrants. DeFi Market Overview - DeFi PulseIf the current streak continues, analysts are predicting that it would go orders of magnitude higher than the last bull run, which saw the price of nearly all crypto-assets to skyrocket and create ATHs! Since finding quality projects is a time consuming and resource intensive task, users seem to be turning to index funds to build diversified portfolios. DeFi Pulse Index has recorded gains of over 48.3% in the last week, containing an assortment of blue chip DeFi assets. https://cryptoticker.io/en/breaking-news-us-chaos-lifts-bitcoin-prices-to-new-all-time-highs/ However, Bitcoin dominance which is a leading indicator of an alt-season has recently started to fall, signalling that this is rehearsal before the real price action begins. It reached as high as 74% in the last couple of days, when the BTC started moving, but has since retraced back to 69%. If the past is any indication, once the Bitcoin price starts to range and the dominance falls below 50%, crypto-assets will truly start to go parabolic! Ethereum rising© Cryptoticker