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Surging prices, anticipation, and steady coin interest round out today’s headlines.

Bitcoin Prices Ease Past $50k, BTC/USD Bulls Aiming at $100k

The world’s most valuable coin, Bitcoin, is trading at around a new all-time high. Moments after racing past $50k on Feb 17, Bitcoin bulls pushed the digital asset to a new 2021 high above $52.5k. According to coin trackers, the Bitcoin price topped $52,873 on Feb 17, a new 2021 high. 

Overly, traders are optimistic, expecting the coin to not only ease past $60k but to reach $100k by the end of the year. Joining the long list of optimists and permabulls, including Anthony Pompliano, is Antony Scaramucci, the former White House Communications Director. 

While appearing on CNBC’s SquawkBox, the executive and the c0-founder founder of SkyBridge Capital said Bitcoin would reach $100k by the end of 2021. 

The Mooch calling for $100,000 Bitcoin by year end.

You love to see it. @Scaramucci pic.twitter.com/jz8jtbDfJB

— Pomp 🌪 (@APompliano) February 17, 2021

Already his fund invested $100 million in Bitcoin in late December 2020.

EIP 1559 to Address Ethereum Gas Problems

Ethereum troubles continue. Although Gas prices have been flat-lining, the average transaction fee remains averaged $19 on Feb 18. According to analysts, this is prohibitive, and an alternative is needed. 

#Ethereum fees still at Mostly Insane levels. They receded a bit from Insane. Warming up the token bridges for cheaper token transfers. Looking at you, @avalancheavax and $xdai.

— Laird Jeff Garzik (@jgarzik) February 18, 2021

Although Eth2 is the grand plan, EIP 1559 is garnering support from across the board. The model replaces the current first auction model with a BASE FEE and provides miner tips where auctions will go on as usual. 

Short list of EIP-1559 benefits:

1. More predictable fees (reduce overpayment, better UX)
2. Removes incentive for reorgs in fee heavy environments
3. Cements primacy of ETH w/ BASE_FEE burn, ↑ cost of economic abstraction / MEV
4. Will allow in-protocol congestion oracle

— trent.eth (@trent_vanepps) February 16, 2021

However, for every block, the user will pay the lowest bid price. Analysts say this will help bring down the cost of transacting in Ethereum, a breather for DeFi users.

I support politicizing all changes to the gas limit because it was a bizarre oversight to let miners select that in the first place and I think a new york agreement moment for Ethereum would be really interesting #supportEIP1559 #Ethereum

— James Prestwich (@_prestwich) February 16, 2021

The Rise of Binance Smart Chain

Binance Smart Chain is feeding off Ethereum’s Gas troubles. Providing an alternative to users desirous of transacting in cheap development environments, the BSC fronted by Binance is gaining traction. 

On Feb 18, the platform activated the Lagrange upgrade. 

#BinanceSmartChain Mainnet Lagrange Upgrade The full node operators on mainnet are expected to switch their software version to v1.0.6 by 2021/02/25. https://t.co/B5r8nczPBJ pic.twitter.com/1w9cLIcn0g

— Binance Chain Community (@BinanceChain) February 18, 2021

Meanwhile, there are more users, and more bridges are being built towards BSC. The Ren Bridge is already active, while DeFi projects in the smart contracting platform now manage millions of investor funds. 

Ren Bridge 2.0

Ethereum ✅
Binance Smart Chain ✅
Solana 🔄
Polkadot 🔄
Cosmos 🔄 pic.twitter.com/1rRlVN4VQY

— renDOGE (@renD0GE) February 17, 2021

Pancake Swap, for instance, now commands a TVL of over $1 billion. This pushes DeFi in BSC to new levels:

.@PancakeSwap, a decentralized exchange built on #BinanceSmartChain has generated over $3.9B in transaction volume over the last 30 days. (+2091% growth month-over-month)

Data: https://t.co/anqX0LKMVS pic.twitter.com/CkFOvvLLWk

— DappRadar (@DappRadar) February 17, 2021