Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, rose above the $3,000 price mark late on Sunday for the first time so far, after setting numerous all-time highs in the past week.
At the time of writing, ETH is changing hands at $3,164.73, up by more than 8.81% in the last 24 hours. Ether is currently up about 300% on a year-to-date base as opposed to a 95% rise for Bitcoin.
Ether’s notable increases come as the demand for the second highly priced cryptocurrency has ascended.
CoinMetrics data illustrates that the number of active addresses has also surged recently to a new all-time high of 770,000, overshadowing the earlier record of 740,000 set in November. The daily transaction amount on Ethereum’s blockchain has further amplified by 23% to 1.378 million in the current year, as indicated by Glassnode data.
Recently, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin revealed the development roadmap of Ethereum after its long-awaited merge to PoS, emphasizing the innovative feature, named sharding. This feature will increase Ethereum’s capabilities to process transactions by excruciating its database into 64 new mini-blockchains, in this way addressing the crowding issues that presently plague the blockchain.
Just a few days ago, FundStrat wrote in a research note on its website that Ether could rise above $10,000 by the end of 2021.
“Ethereum’s market cap has climbed to 30% of Bitcoin’s over the last few weeks,” the note read. “During the previous market cycle, Ethereum broke this level getting as high as 80% of Bitcoin’s worth.”
