Cryptocurrency Ether hit another record high on Wednesday, taking gains this year to close to 500% on the back of growing interest in decentralized finance applications
By Ritvik Carvalho and Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss
LONDON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Cryptocurrency ether hit another record high on Wednesday, taking gains this year to close to 500% on the back of growing interest in decentralized finance applications and increasing institutional interest in cryptocurrencies.
Ether, the second-biggest cryptocurrency by market capitalization after bitcoin, climbed to $4,380.64.35 but was last down 4.1% at $4,029. Bitcoin was also down more than 4% at $54,188.
Ether has jumped about 470% against the dollar this year as the ethereum blockchain becomes more widely used by peer-to-peer - or decentralized - cryptocurrency platforms that enable crypto-denominated lending outside of traditional banking institutions.
The surge has also seen ether - which in the crypto world is also widely referred to as ethereum - outperform bitcoin, which has almost doubled in price this year as larger investors warm to the emerging technology.
"Ethereum is growing in part by the prospects of a revamped network with the right upgrades highly anticipated to accommodate DApps (decentralized applications) and smart contracts that are built on it," said Nick Spanos, co-founder of Zap Protocol, a blockchain-agnostic decentralized network. "The coin is bound to grow more in the near future, with an ambitious target of $10,000 by year-end."
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