The ether price passed $4,000 for the first time over the weekend, and after a brief pullback, it climbed back above $4,000 again Monday morning. Some experts predict that the cryptocurrency’s value could reach almost $20,000 by 2025.
Ether price surpasses $4,000 for the first time
The ether price hit an all-time high of $4,141.99 early Monday morning after climbing almost 7%. Although bitcoin remains the most popular and most expensive cryptocurrency by far, ether is catching up fast.
In fact, most of those who responded to Finder.com's Cryptocurrency Predictions survey said Ethereum would be the most widely transacted digital currency by next year.
Institutional investors have been piling into bitcoin, making Ethereum the next logical cryptocurrency for institutional adoption. However, it's the ether price that has been soaring this year, as CNBC noted, that the bitcoin price declined more than 2% last month while ether increased by more than 40%.
The Ethereum network differs from bitcoin in that developers can build apps on top of it. Additionally, proponents of bitcoin see its as a store of value like gold, but Ethereum aims to create a decentralized internet that central authorities don't maintain.
Ethereum seen at almost $20,000
Finder.com said the experts who responded to its survey for its Cryptocurrency Predictions report expect the ether price to hit $19,842 by 2025. They believe increased transaction use, the rise of decentralized finance and non-fungible tokens and increased adoption by institutional investors will drive the steady increase in the price.
More than half of those surveyed said Ethereum, rather than bitcoin, would be the most widely transacted digital currency by the end of next year. Dr. Paul Ennis, assistant professor at University College of Dublin, believes the ether price will hit $10,000 by the end of this year. He also thinks it is extremely undervalued and pointed out that it has many more use cases than bitcoin.
70 percent of those surveyed believe DeFI and NFTs have given Ethereum more use cases than bitcoin. However, University of Canberra Senior Lecturer John Hawkins noted that just having more use cases doesn't mean the ether price will increase. He expects Ethereum to be dragged down with bitcoin in the coming months.
Institutions are adopting ether
It's no secret that institutional investors and corporations have been adopting bitcoin, but the same thing is happening to Ethereum, driving the price higher and higher. According to Coinshares, institutions had purchased more than $30 million worth of ether as of the end of last month.
Ethereum's market capitalization has now surpassed those of Walmart (NYSE:WMT) and Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) and is now approaching JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM)'s market cap.