The price of the Ethereum network’s native cryptocurrency, ether, has recently hit a 10-month high after surpassing the $300 mark, in a move that came in a wider market rally that saw bitcoin surpass the psychological $10,000 resistance.
According to CryptoCompare data, one ether is currently being traded at around $308, as the cryptocurrency’s price rose about 6.2% in the last 24-hour period, making it one of the best performing top altcoins in said period.
In the last 30 days, ether’s price has risen by 31%, and the cryptocurrency is up by over 130% since the beginning of this year. It is, however, still far from its $1,400 all-time high seen in late 2017, before last year’s bear market saw it drop over 94% to a low of $82, before it started recovering.
Bitcoin, the flagship cryptocurrency, has on the other hand seen its price rise by little over 10% in said period, and is now trading at $10,780. The cryptocurrency is, according to some, now going to continue rising until it hits $15,000, which will likely also help ETH’s price.
While the cryptocurrency market has over the last 24 hours added about $24 billion to its market cap, ether is one of the best-performing altcoins for several reasons. As covered, the Ethereum blockchain can benefit enterprises in multiple ways.
Moreover two startups, cryptocurrency payments firm CLIC Technology and blockchain infrastructure provider Opporty, have recently revealed they’ll soon be releasing a browser extension that’ll allow users to shop on Amazon using ether.
Usage data is also bullish for ETH. Volumes on its decentralized applications (dApps) grew to record highs in April of this year, while network activity has seen daily gas usage hit new highs in May. Gas is seen as the ‘fuel’ of the Ethereum blockchain, which recently saw a mysterious token airdrop take nearly 60% of it.
Besides ETH, most altcoins are currently up between 1% and 5%, with Dash being an exception, as the cryptocurrency’s price rose over 7.3% in the last 24-hour period. Notably, other popular coins like Brave’s Basic Attention Token (BAT), NEM, and Waves are down 9%, 7%, and 10% respectively.
