Ethereum Nears $4000 Milestone as EigenLayer Rises as Top DeFi Protocol

By: Eva Baxter

Ethereum, the second-largest digital asset by market capitalization, is nearing the significant $4000 milestone since December 2021, with a 15% uptick over the past week. Concurrently, leading restaking protocol EigenLayer has ascended to become the second-largest DeFi protocol in terms of total value locked, as per DeFillama data.

Ethereum is currently valued at $3954 following a 4% gain in the last day. The upward trend in Ethereum's value can be traced to the excitement surrounding the soon-to-be-live Dencun upgrade on the mainnet by Mar. 13, expected to bring proto-danksharding to Ethereum, thereby reducing transaction costs for layer-2 blockchains and dealing with scalability issues.

In other news, EigenLayer's TVL has surged to a record peak of $11.7 billion during the week, topping Aave's TVL of $11.4 billion. This growth is largely attributed to EigenLayer's decision to abrogate token restaking restrictions and eliminate TVL caps for individual tokens. On Mar. 5, the protocol witnessed a massive $790 million surge in TVL, marking its highest daily rise since Feb. 9.

The total assets locked on the protocol have also soared to more than 3 million ETH, up from under 1 million in early February. Amidst increased security scrutiny due to rapid growth, the protocol has offered rewards of up to $100,000 to researchers revealing the platform’s medium or higher severity security issues.