Ethereum has been taking the opportunity to bust a bit higher today, as Bitcoin takes a nap below US$50K and above $47K. Meanwhile Arbitrum, the hotly anticipated Ethereum Layer 2 scaling solution, is now live.

 

BTC and ETH overview

At the time of writing, Bitcoin (BTC) is continuing the choppy sideways chart pattern it’s been on for the past few days, currently changing hands for US$47,706.

It’s a consolidating move that could see the altcoins take their turn in the spotlight, which seems to be happening for at least one big one today.

Ethereum (ETH) may not be the biggest altcoin gainer in the past 24 hours (+4.53%), but it’s been showing some notable strength to make a move from Bitcoin’s shadow this week. It’s up 12.17% over the past seven days and is trading at US$3,589.

The no.2 coin by market cap has hit a three-month high versus BTC, according to Cointelegraph and could be gaining strength to make a run towards its all-time high of US$4,356.

As has been pointed out by various crypto media outlets and influencers this week, however, September isn’t historically the most bullish of crypto months.

“History never repeats itself, but it does often rhyme,” said Mark Twain. But then again, he never saw anything quite like crypto.

BTC/USD historical returns chart. Source: Bybt

 

Arbitrum goes live on Ethereum

The highly anticipated Layer 2 scaling solution Arbitrum is now live on the Ethereum mainnet, with the launch of Arbitrum One by developer Offchain Labs.

Along with Optimism, which is still yet to launch, Arbitrum is considered one of Ethereum’s top scaling solutions thanks to its innovative use of Optimistic Rollups – layer 2 tech that bundles thousands of sidechain transactions into a single transaction verified and settled on Ethereum.

This means that Arbitrum will be able to facilitate dApps (decentralised applications) and their smart contracts from Ethereum with minimal fuss.

As can be seen on the Arbitrum One portal, the layer 2 project has launched with a broad ecosystem of decentralised applications already integrated and good to go. These include DeFi “blue chips” Aave, Balancer, Curve, SushiSwap, Uniswap and loads more. There are more than 70 projects integrated at this early stage.

Users of these DeFi protocols can now use them on Arbitrum to trade, lend, provide liquidity, and yield farm – all at much higher speeds than they’ve experienced previously on Ethereum, and with significantly lower gas fees.

This is the type of user experience Ethereum fans have been craving, which is why scaling solutions such as Arbitrum are such an important part of Ethereum’s short and mid-term future.

 

Mooners and shakers

Elsewhere in crypto today, we’ve seen some high gainers, and significant losers in the alts.

XRP has been the best performing top 10 coin over the past 24 hours, up 5.06% at the time of writing and changing hands for US$1.20.

Solana (SOL), however, has been crushing it on the weekly timeframe, and is the top 1o’s biggest gainer over the past seven days, up 63.14%, currently going for US$116.18.

Outside the top 10, some notable daily winners include: Mina Protocol (MINA) +27.04%; FTX Token (FTT) 26.41%; Fantom (FTM) 23.4%; and Polkamarkets (POLK) 22.41%.

Some of the biggest 24-hour losers include: Feisty Doge NFT (NFD) -23.93%; Bondly (BONDLY) -15.73%; Exeedme (XED) -13.09%; and Wilder World (WILD) -12.64%.

Some gaming-related tokens have been experiencing a bit of a pullback over the past 24 hours, which some crypto influencers claim may have something to do with this news out of China…

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