ETH News: Ether Looks Ready to Break Through $400 and Reach New All-Time Highs

Bitcoin’s recent rally beyond $8,000 has been benefiting alt coins, as most of them experienced price surges last week, notably Monero and DASH. Now, it looks like it’s Ether’s time to shine, as it breaks through the $400 all-time-high, after about a 5-month slump.

Ether, which is already the world’s second largest cryptocurrency in terms of market cap, is just behind Bitcoin in terms of brand-recognition as well. While Bitcoin takes the limelight and media attention, most people forget that Ether started this year at only around $8, and has recorded gains of up to 4,800% since then.

Now, Ether is poised to break through the $400 barrier, and if it stays up long enough, changes are high that the uptrend is going to continue, as was the case with DASH, which touched almost $600 this week, before retracing to around $550.

November was generally positive for Ether, as average trading volumes increased, exceeding $1 billion on four occasions. We also reported today how Ethereum now processesmore transactionsevery day than any other cryptocurrency – a statistic that correlates with price as well.

While Ethereum now faces competition from the likes of NEO, Lisk and other platforms that allow for decentralized apps to be developed, it is still the platform of choice for developers and initial coin offerings, which have a major impact on its popularity and price.

Additionally, the network is also working on switching over to a proof-of-stake protocol, which would result in a more environmentally friendly and cheaper consensus method. Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin has also been looking into the scaling issue, which he pointed out during Devcon, earlier this month, and proposed ‘sharding’ as a possible solution.

Finally, there is no doubt that Bitcoin’s price rise, which was largely due to the cancellation of SegWit2x andChicago Mercantile Group’s announcementto launch Bitcoin futures, has helped change the market’s perspective. Back in June, when Ether was nearing $400, it seemed expensive compared to Bitcoin, which was only around $2,500. Today we are looking at Bitcoin over $8,000, and Ether (and other alt coins) seems like a bargain at $400.