Ether, the cryptocurrency of the Ethereum network, and the second most famous cryptocurrency after Bitcoin, hit its all-time high on Tuesday January 19th of 2021, rising to over 1400 USD per unit. So far this year it has doubled its value, compared to bitcoin’s 30% rise.
What even is Ether?
In order to understand what Ether is, we need to understand the Ethereum network altogether. The Ethereum platform was created in 2015 by programmer Vitalik Buterin, with the perspective of creating an instrument for decentralized and collaborative applications. Ether (ETH), is its native cryptocurrency, which works like a token that can be used in transactions that use that software. Like Bitcoin, Ether exists as part of an autonomous peer-to-peer financial system, free from government intervention, and it's value has soared in a short period of time as user acquisition rises.
The Ethereum blockchain is very similar to Bitcoin’s blockchain, but it's programming language allows developers to create software that allows them to manage transactions and automate certain results. This software is known as a smart contract.
If a traditional contract describes the terms of a relationship, a smart contract ensures that those terms are met by writing them in code. They are programs that automatically execute the contract once the predefined conditions are met, eliminating the delay and cost that exist when executing an agreement manually.
Another difference between Ether and other cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin relies on Ether not having a maximum number of tokens or coins that can be mined, it just has a limit per year (18 million). But it has not always been like that:
- 60 million ether were bought by users in a 2014 crowdfunding campaign.
- 12 million went to the Ethereum Foundation, a collective of developers and analysts who work to enhance the ethereum network and the underlying technology.
- 5 ether tokens (ETH) are allotted to the miners that verify transactions on the network every 12 seconds.
Investing in Ether, even better than Bitcoin
In January of 2016, Ether was trading at around 1 USD per coin, reaching parity with the most important coin in the world, and it's next peak was two years later, reaching a value of 1.391 USD per coin. Yeah, that’s 1391% only in 2 years!
Ether has also risen more than 1,000% since the initial public sale of ETH, the code under which it is listed, in 2015.
At the moment of writing, Ethereum’s market capitalization is 149 billion USD, according to coinmarketcap.com. With over 47 billion USD traded every day with the currency, it is taking a 15,36% of the whole cryptocurrencies market, standing right behind Bitcoin.
But so far this year, Ether shows a much bigger increase than Bitcoin. While Bitcoin climbed 30%, Ether traded 93% above its 2020 closing price. And the guilty of that happening is Bitcoin itself. The crypto fever that made the world look closely at Bitcoin, especially investors, dragged the prices of other crypto assets, which tend to level up with it (for more info about what happened with Bitcoin, visit https://www.creimermanlaw.com/post/bitcoin-fever-is-here-to-stay ).
With Bitcoin and Ether raising their value, it is just a matter of time until other altcoins do so too… so it seems like it is a now or never opportunity. Are you going to miss it?