Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency behind Bitcoin, has reached an all-time high as the Ethereum network is increasingly being used for everything from non-fungible tokens to decentralized banking applications. The native cryptocurrency of the most widely used blockchain increased by up to 3.5 percent to $4,403.93, breaking the previous high of $4,379.62 set in May.
Other smaller tokens, such as Binance Coin and Solana, rose in value, rekindling hopes for cryptocurrencies to surpass Bitcoin. The achievement comes on the heels of Bitcoin reaching an all-time high of over $67,000 last week, fueled by wagers on greater mainstream use of digital assets.
Ethereum has long surpassed Bitcoin as the most widely used blockchain system, with the protocol acting as the foundation for prominent projects such as MakerDAO and Uniswap, which can be layered over the network using software programs known as smart contracts.
The Ethereum blockchain is home to over 3,000 decentralized programs, or Dapps. The network’s Altair update was successfully enabled earlier this week, according to Ethereum 2.0 engineer Preston Van Loon on Twitter. Polkadot and Solana tokens have been among the best-performing cryptocurrencies this year.
Other cryptocurrencies, such as Cardano, rose more than 5% to $2.03, while Dogecoin rose more than 25% to $0.30. Solana, XRP, Litecoin, and Uniswap have all gained 7-10% in the previous 24 hours.
