Ethereum reaches new all-time high
Ethereum has just achieved a historic milestone – the price of the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency surpassed its previous ATH set on May 12. Just a few hours ago, ETH reached a high point of $4,402 per coin and held a market cap of more than $520 billion, accounting for a roughly 20% share of the total cryptocurrency market.
Ethereum’s surge to a new peak value came nine days after Bitcoin reached its new all-time high on October 20. The rise in the price of ETH was accompanied by the total market cap surging past $2.65 trillion, close to its highest value to date.
Ethereum faced numerous hurdles on its journey to a new ATH. After reaching the then high price of $4,365 in mid-May, ETH faced severe selling pressure after the cryptocurrency industry underwent a strong correction at the end of May, which saw ETH drop to $2,350 on May 25.
The bear market continued through the summer – ETH had fallen to its lowest point of $1,728 on July 21. Numerous critics came out of the woodwork to criticize the digital currency, pointing out that the transition to proof-of-stake consensus mechanism is taking too long and that the ETH network, with its high gas fees, is not equipped to handle the high load of a surging non-fungible token (NFT) sector.
However, the announcement of the Ethereum London hard fork scheduled for August quickly shifted the market’s outlook. Since then, the price of ETH has nearly doubled to reach today’s high point above $4,400.
On Wednesday, the Ethereum network underwent a new significant update. The upgrade of Eth2 Beacon Chain dubbed ‘Altair’ sets the stage for the eventual merge of the Ehtereum mainnet and Beacon Chain. Altair upgrade will likely be the last significant update before ETH shifts to PoS mechanism.
Other altcoins have also benefited from the positive market sentiment introduced by ETH’s stellar performance. Notably, memecoins Shiba Inu and Dogecoin have exploded in value over the last seven days, gaining 157% and 19% respectively. With 30% gains, Polygon and Fantom are another two notable benefactors of the ETH-led altcoin rally.
In general, altcoins are gaining momentum on Bitcoin over the week. BTC dominance has dropped from its 6-month high of 51.4% reached on October 21 to 42.6% at press time.
