The new high water mark of $3,855.40 came less than a week after the cryptocurrency topped $3,000 for the first time.
Ether (ETH, +8.08%) (ETH), the native cryptocurrency of the Ethereum blockchain, continued its recent torrid run, setting a new record price Saturday of over $3,800 amid speculation the network’s value might soar as more traders warm to the potential of decentralized finance, known as DeFi, and other uses like non-fungible tokens or NFTs.The new all-time high price of $3,855.40 came less than a week after the cryptocurrency topped $3,000 for the first time. Ether has since given back some of its gains and is now at $3,839.98, up 8.96% over the last 24 hours.The price of the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap has quadrupled just this year alone, outperforming bitcoin (BTC, +2.52%) (BTC), the largest cryptocurrency, which has doubled.Ether now has a market capitalization of $443.8 billion, exceeding that of Johnson & Johnson, as well as that of Walmart and UnitedHealth.Should Ether continue on its upward trend it wouldn’t be long before its market cap is half that of larger sibling bitcoin’s $1.107 trillion.The latest price move comes amid signs of growing interest in ether from big institutional investors and Wall Street firms.Late last month, the Wall Street investment-research firm FundStrat predicted ether could surge to $10,000 this year, powered by enthusiasm over DeFi’s growth and advances in Internet-based financial applications.As for bitcoin, the price of the leading cryptocurrency is nearing $60,000 again, up 2.73% to $59.207.09 at press time.
