Subscribers

The rise and rise of Ethereum

Move over bitcoin. Ether is fast becoming the digital currency of the moment.

THE price of bitcoin has hit record highs in recent months, more than doubling in price since the start of the year. Despite these gains, bitcoin is on the verge of losing its position as the dominant virtual currency.

The value of ether, the digital money that lives on an upstart network known as Ethereum, has risen an eye-popping 4,500 per cent since the beginning of the year.

With the recent price increases, the outstanding units of the ether currency were worth around US$34 billion as of Monday - or 82 per cent as much as all the bitcoin in existence. At the beginning of the year, ether was only about 5 per cent as valuable as bitcoin.

The sudden rise of Ethereum highlights how volatile the...

KEYWORDS IN THIS ARTICLE

BT is now on Telegram!

For daily updates on weekdays and specially selected content for the weekend. Subscribe to t.me/BizTimes