Ethereum’s evolution during the last couple of days creates big hopes for the smart contracts and digital currency system. On the 10th of January, the digital currency managed to hit another all-time high, marking a 60% increase in value in a single week.
With this in mind, Ethereum managed to hit an all-time high of $1,416, which gives it an increase of 13,000% in around a year, a figure enviable by many other cryptocurrencies. While the massive growth in price begun recently, it is expected that it will last for a longer period of time.
Economic analysts believe that the strong buying support for the digital currency is due to several factors. With this in mind, the gain begun when Ethereum mentioned that the transaction volumes for the fourth quarter on the network, managed to double in size, while also surpassing the threshold of 10 transactions per second for several days.
Another reason responsible for the increase in price would be the growing investor interest for Initial Coin offerings, which are basically innovative projects trying to crowdfund by issuing value tokens in exchange for the capital being invested. While they are considered high-risk by many investors, ICOs can have huge profitability rates. According to the head of APAC business development for Gatecoin, "Ether's price rally is a testament to the growing popularity of Ethereum as a platform for decentralized applications (…) Over the last year and a half, we've seen that the majority of tokens issued during ICOs and traded on exchanges, have been coded to run on the Ethereum network.”
Last but not last, the value growth may also be linked to companies such as Microsoft and JPMorgan, working on smart applications that work by using the Ethereum blockchain. In return, this has led to even more capital being poured into the network, alongside with an increase in demand.
At this time, economic analysts are not sure what values Ethereum will hit in the near future, yet the growth in price will likely continue, given the increasing popularity of the ICO trend, big companies stepping in and adopting the technology, but also thanks to a lack of drama, unlike some of the other digital currencies available on the market.
Based on everything that has been outlined so far, what are your thoughts on Ethereum’s recent price increase? Let us know in the comment section below.