Ether has hit its all-time high at 356.82% Year to Date, breaking through the $3500 price level. Bitcoin now has got a little bit more competition in the crypto market. The second-largest cryptocurrency in the market, known as Ethereum, hit an all-time high this week, and it rose about $3500; it is up 20% this week.
It is seen as a comparatively smaller but more potentially useful cryptocurrency when compared to Bitcoin.
Ethereum is often described as digital oil when Bitcoin gets described as digital gold. The idea is that if you have a block of gold and a barrel of oil, the oil is probably more useful.
Ethereum Network is a blockchain and decentralized network, and Ether (ETH) s used for payment on the network. ETH gets used on that network to power things, and this is where the gold and oil analogy comes like NFTs, decentralized apps, which are also known as Dapps – a commonly used buzzword; still, it is really seen as a part of its powering some of its network that has become so popular during the NFT boom.
For many crypto believers, the ideal future is a world where all of the apps that we think of now, whether it is in finance or gaming, are decentralized. So there is no central authority.
The idea for Ethereum and the cryptocurrency is that as those networks become more popular and as people start to use them more, than cryptocurrency will become more valuable, it will be used more often. Therefore, ETH price should go up in tandem with that.
If you compare to most of the other cryptocurrencies, Ethereum is way ahead in terms of a use case for payment which is already being used on this network.
When compared to something like Dogecoin, which really started as a joke but is now being accepted as a mainstream form of payment (The Oakland A’s have stated they have started accepting DogeCoin for tickets), other cryptocurrencies have a long way to catch up to becoming the oil equivalent or actually provide for an actual use case.
The other thing I would point out about Ethereum, Bitcoin, and Ethereum are the only two cryptocurrencies that have been designated as commodities. They are regulated by the CFTC. Therefore, in the eyes of the regulators, they sort of figured out Ethereum and put it in a bucket with Bitcoin. There aren’t many regulatory questions compared to a lot of smaller cryptocurrencies that are new may have some hurdles when it comes to how US regulators view that.
