Ether 

 led the market higher as it trekked toward another new all-time high at $1,763. ETH CME futures are scheduled to launch on Feb. 9, leading many analysts to predict that the top-ranked altcoin will hit $2,000 before meeting any significant resistance. 

 

Data from Cointelegraph Markets and TradingView shows Ether currently trades at $1,714, an increase of 3.27% on the 24-hour chart while Bitcoin 

 is up 0.21% and trading at $37,633.

 

ETH/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView

Gas fees on the Ethereum network also set a new all-time high this week with the average transaction cost reaching $17.5 on Feb. 3, which prompted some exchanges to halt ETH and ERC-20 withdrawals.

Ethereum average gas price. Source: Etherscan

On Feb.4 Yearn Finance (YFI) underwent an exploit which saw a hacker drain $11 million worth of DAI stablecoin from the version 1 DAI yield vault. The team has responded quickly by taking several steps to help mitigate the damage of the attack.

These included Tether freezing $1.7 million in stolen funds which will be returned to the project and a proposal from the MakerDAO community to create a purpose-built collateralized debt position (CDP) to make affected users whole.

Positive news came from Protego, a Washington-based institutional crypto custodian, who announced that it has become the second crypto-native firm to receive national licensing from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

Democrats vote to push the stimulus bill forward

Stocks rose on Friday as U.S. lawmakers passed a key hurdle in the rollout of the next stimulus package which could see individuals making less than $50,000 per year get a $1,400 stimulus check.

A majority of the major indices finished the day in the green, with the S&P 500, Dow and NASDAQ closing the day up 0.39%, 0.30% and 0.57% respectively. Silver also saw a gain of 2.82% and closed the day at $26.98.

Altcoins push higher

As Bitcoin trades in a range between $36,000 and $38,000, altcoins are gaining momentum and multiple coins saw their prices breakout on Friday.

Daily cryptocurrency market performance. Source: Coin360

MakerDAO 

 gained another 45% to establish a new all-time high of $3,099 before correcting to $2,810, while the DeFi infrastructure protocol 0x (ZRX) has seen its price rise 61% to $1.63.

 

Notable performers from the larger cap altcoins were Cardano 

, which is up 26.44%, and Binance Coin   which reached a new all-time high at $64.87

 

BTC/USD daily chart. Source: Coin360

The overall cryptocurrency market cap now stands at $1.17 trillion and Bitcoin’s dominance rate is 60.1%.