NurPhoto / Getty Images
- Ether hit a new all-time high above $4,770 on Monday, while bitcoin neared October’s record of almost $67,000.
- More ether is being burned and hopes are building for an ether-based ETF.
- The gains for ether and bitcoin helped drive the combined crypto market cap to break $3 trillion for the first time.
- Sign up here for our daily newsletter, 10 Things Before the Opening Bell.
Ether hit record highs on Monday, thanks to a higher burn rate of tokens and fresh burst of new money flowing into the market that lifted bitcoin towards its recent all-time peak, bringing the total value of the cryptocurrency market to $3 trillion for the first time.
Bitcoin was last up 6.5% over the past 24 hours to around $65,884, by 06:40 a.m., while ether was up 2.9%, having risen earlier by as much as 4.6% to a high of $4,762 on Coinbase.
The rise in ether has been underpinned by the rapid burn rate of tokens on the network, with 800,000 ether burned over the last three months, according to Freddie Evans, Sales Trader at UK based digital asset broker GlobalBlock.
“The price of ether is increasing with help from the continuing burning reducing supply and anticipation for eths move to proof of stake in the new year moving ether to a far less energy-intensive system expected to reduce ethereum’s energy usage by 99%,” Evans said.
Momentum building behind the launch of an ether backed exchange traded fund could have also propelled the coin. Bloomberg analysts last week predicted the first ethereum futures – based exchange traded fund could launch in the first quarter of 2022.
Bakkt, digital asset manager, also told Insider Saturday that they would allow its clients to buy, hold and sell ether via its app by the end of the year.
Ether, the second biggest coin by market cap behind bitcoin, has risen by 36% over the month, thanks to the growing popularity of applications such as non-fungible tokens and the development of the…
