The third week of August saw the market capitalization of the crypto market reaching $2 trillion, a first since May of this year. Bitcoin also reached $50,000 levels for the first time in three months on the 23rd.
At the time of press, Bitcoin was trading at $48,864 (24 August 01:30 PM UTC) with a 24-hour price change of -3,10%.
Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, recovered to a $3,300 level after reaching its peak in May of 2021. The response came from the recent Ethereum hard fork upgrade ‘London’ which included EIP-1559, an improvement proposal that burns some amount of Ether with every transaction. So far, over 83,000 ETHs have been burned as of the 24th of this month.
NFT trade
Popularity in NFT surged as new data revealed the monthly trading volume of the NFT trading platform exceeding $1.27 billion. Most of the volume came from the popular NFT marketplace OpenSea which recorded $1.23 billion in volume this month.
OpenSea trading volume was more than four times than the month of July, indicating surging demand for NFTs. The number of google searches related to the company reached a record high as well.
Founded in 2017, OpenSea became the first unicorn NFT platform after raising $100 million at its Series B funding round in July, taking its total valuation to $1.5 billion.