After testing new record highs overnight, just shy of $20,000, Bitcoin has tumbled $2000 this morning…

Source: Bloomberg

The entire crypto space is also getting whacked…

Source: Bloomberg

And at the same time, gold has surged back above $1800, erasing last week’s sudden plunge…

 

Is the gold-to-bitcoin rotation unwinding?

Source: Bloomberg

Interestingly, Ethereum also took a big hit…

Source: Bloomberg

As Ethereum 2.0  Beacon Chain goes live. As CoinDesk notes, today’s launch concludes the opening act, or “Phase 0,” of Ethereum’s consensus mechanism transition, which will see the network – whose native cryptocurrency, ether, is worth $70 billion by market cap – fundamentally change how it settles payments while in motion.

“The launch of the beacon chain is a huge accomplishment and lays the foundation for Ethereum’s more scalable, secure, and sustainable home,” Ethereum Foundation researcher Danny Ryan told CoinDesk in an email. “There is still much work to do, but today we celebrate.”

The Beacon Chain will be the backbone of a new Ethereum blockchain, a network intended to keep pace with PayPal and Visa in terms of processing speed, while rivaling them in terms of transparency and payment finality.

As CoinTelegraph points out, the transition to PoS paves the way for future planned upgrades to be implemented, such as sharding to improve scalability.

Currently staked ETH are likely to be locked up until Phase 1.5 of the Ethereum 2.0 rollout, currently planned for late 2021 or early 2022. This will see the current Ethereum mainnet merge with the new beacon chain and sharding system.

Anticipation for the Eth2 launch has been building throughout 2020, and has been reflected in the price of Ether, which started the year at just $130 but is currently riding high at over $600.

The launch will be especially welcomed by those in the decentralized finance community. The explosion of DeFi during 2020 saw a huge increase in traffic and gas fees on the Ethereum network.

And it appears retail is starting to show interest again as Google searches for Bitcoin Price are at two year highs…

And as institutional interest also picks up, CoinTelegraph notes that  “PlanB,” the pseudonymous creator of the stock-to-flow-based family of Bitcoin price models, said on Dec. 1 that all was still going to plan after the most recent halving event in May.

“My fellow Bitcoiners, the bull market is upon us,” he declared, producing the latest version of his Stock-to-Flow Cross-Asset (S2FX) chart showing BTC/USD posting its highest-ever monthly close.

Stock-to-flow cross-asset (S2FX) historical chart. Source: PlanB/ Twitter

 PlanB believes that recent gains mark just the start of Bitcoin’s next phase, a theory which would see Bitcoin simply follow its historical behavior.

“Like clockwork November red dot closed above all other red dots .. at $19,700 .. a new Bitcoin ATH. This is just the beginning. We will see volatility (e.g. -35%), but also new ATHs. Enjoy the ride!” he added.