Even though Ether (ETH) reached a $4,870 all-time high on Nov. 10, bulls have little reason to celebrate. The 290% gains year-to-date have been overshadowed by Dec.’s 18% price drop. Still, Ethereum’s network value locked in smart contracts (TVL) increased nine-fold to $155 billion. Looking at the past couple of months’ price performance chart doesn’t really tell the whole story, and Ether’s current $450 billion market capitalization makes it one of the world’s top 20 tradable assets, right behind the two-century-old Johnson & Johnson conglomerate. Ether/USD price at FTX. Source: TradingView 2021 should be remembered by the decentralized exchanges’ sheer growth, whose daily volume reached $3 billion, a 340% growth versus the last quarter of 202...