The popular altcoin has shown significant growth in the last few hours as it broke the $400 barrier.
Ether reached a new milestone today as the cryptocurrency broke the $400 barrier and is currently trading at around $415. Ether refers to Ethereum blockchain token and it has enjoyed a remarkably good year in terms of price growth.
At the start of 2017, ether was trading at a mere $8. However, it’s latest price surge indicates a growth rate of roughly 5000% in the last year. In the past 23 hours, ether has grown by just over 8%.
Ether is slowly gaining on the cryptocurrency superstar, Bitcoin. At the time of writing, there is $39 billion worth of ether circulating internationally. While Bitcoin is still ahead with $132 billion, the promising growth of ether is undeniable. According to the market analyzer, CoinMarketCap, the total market value of every single cryptocurrency currently in circulation, has recently reached a quarter trillion. Another momentous achievement for the cryptocurrency.
Despite the ether community’s enthusiasm regarding the token’s growth, several users and analysts have been pondering the events that set off such a significant growth. Some experts have pointed to the emergence of a certain chart which draws a comparison between the amount of ethereum-based transactions, versus other cryptocurrency transactions on a daily basis.
According to the chart, there were 534,000 transactions conducted using the ethereum network on the last day alone. This number effectively means that in the last day, ethereum has accounted for more than half of all cryptocurrency transactions. Experts and users alike have posited that this impressive achievement of the Ethereum network, could perhaps have caused a surge in demand for the cryptocurrency. This could also indicate a growing trend in terms of the demand for ether amongst cryptocurrency users.
Despite the valid reasoning, it seems unlikely that ether could have enjoyed such a significant growth in the last day alone purely due to its transaction volume capacity. It is more likely that there are several factors at play. The Ethereum network consists of a unique programming code which enables developers on the network to write apps and code executions. The Ethereum network allows for a certain amount of interactivity between developers and the network itself.
Some transactions are also processed by automated systems. However, it is difficult to know exactly what percentage of the total daily transactions are conducted and processed by bots or the automated systems. It is not even clear whether these automated systems and significant transaction volumes contributed to the cryptocurrency’s growth.
As is often the case with sudden price surges, there was likely a variety of factors at play. Regardless of the exact cause, the growth is undeniable, and perhaps indicative of a growing trend in the next few months.
