Ethereum price hits $170 after strong rally

Ethereum (ETH) rose 5.7% to reach as high as $170.76 earlier this morning, before falling back to its current value at $167.82 in a slight pull-back.

Ethereum has struggle to hold the $170 price point for more than a week now after breaking $170 on April 7. The cryptocurrency is now down just 0.5% in the last week, but is up almost 48% for the month. Besides Binance Coin (BNB), Ethereum is the best performing top 10 cryptocurrency in the last month.

Despite trading volumes gradually slipping off since the start of the week, the market has once again burst to life today as the Ethereum market is on track to see more than $20 billion in Ethereum changing hands today. This represents the highest Ethereum trade volume in more than a week, but still down significantly from the $24 billion peak seen in early April.

This recent growth in popularity has seen Ethereum reach value transfer parity with Bitcoin (BTC), as more than $1.5 billion worth of Ethereum and ERC-20 tokens are now moved on-chain each day.

Ethereum has also managed to rack up strong gains against Bitcoin in recent weeks, gaining 3.5% against BTC in the last day and 10.6% in the last month. However, the cryptocurrency still hasn't recovered from its shattering mid-March losses, which saw the price of Ethereum collapse from almost $250 down to under $100 in one of the worst cryptocurrency sell-offs in recent history.

Based on today's performance, Ethereum is currently one of the frontrunners among the top ten cryptocurrencies with its 5.7% growth. Nonetheless, Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Litecoin (LTC) are up around three percent apiece, while EOS has slightly edged Ethereum with its seven percent growth today.