In brief
- Ethereum's price has reached $600 three days after breaking $500.
- In the last 24 hours, its price has increased by 14%.
- A major Bitcoin bull run and anticipation over the Ethereum 2.0 upgrade have pushed up its price.
Ethereum’s price has reached $600, the highest it’s been since June 2018. This comes just three days after the cryptocurrency broke the $500 barrier on November 20.
Ethereum has been on an upward trend for the last three months. On August 23, the cryptocurrency was at $389. That means it has shot up 54% since.
“Ethereum continues to climb; the silent rally is upon us,” Charles Storry, co-founder of PhutureDAO, told Decrypt.
Ethereum’s market cap has also increased. At the time of writing, Ethereum’s market cap is at $66 billion, up 28% in the last month, and 34% in the last three months.
These positive indicators have led to an increase in Ethereum’s trading volume, which has grown from $11 billion last week to $27 billion today. This represents an increase of 59%.
This is part of a longer trend. Ethereum’s trading volume has gone up by 196% since sitting at the $8 billion mark three months ago.
Why is Ethereum's price rising?
Despite this upward trend, the last few months have not all been plain sailing. After starting September at a price of $486, Ethereum looked set to break the $500 mark only to dip all the way down to $327 on September 6. However, this reversal has come alongside both strong performance by Bitcoin (which can drag the market along with it) and excitement over Ethereum 2.0’s impending launch.
Ethereum 2.0 is a network upgrade that’s set to solve the coin’s scalability issues. While penned for December 1, the network needs 524,288 ETH ($315 million) to be staked on the network for it to launch. So far, about half of this amount has been staked, but it’s not looking on track for the initial launch date.
Ethereum has actually grown faster than Bitcoin over the last few months. Today, Bitcoin’s price is $18,513, up by 37% from its price of $11,627 three months ago. In contrast, Ethereum has grown at a rate of 54% in the same period.
Over the last week, all of the top 10 cryptocurrencies—barring the stablecoin Tether of course—have increased in price. Ethereum has grown by 30%, while XRP has led the way with an increase of 78%.
It may not be Bitcoin mania, but it just might be altseason.