RIYADH: The price of ether, Bitcoin’s biggest competitor, rose on Thursday after the Ethereum core network was upgraded.
Ether was trading 6.2 percent higher at $2,781 at 2:43 p.m. in London, according to Coindesk data. The second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization has risen from $741.12 since the beginning of the year for a gain of about 280 percent, while bitcoin is up about 40 percent in the same period.
The market capitalization of ether was $324.4 billion, while bitcoin is $765.5 billion.
“Ethereum could flip bitcoin as the world’s number one cryptocurrency,” Tim Sabanov, the chief technology officer at Scotland-based bitcoin and crypto platform Zumo, told Forbes.
The apparent success of the upgrade is getting priced in, said Martin Gaspar, research analyst at CrossTower. “The notion of ethereum becoming a deflationary cryptocurrency in the future is now tangible, and the effects on ethereum’s valuation could be profound.”
It will take a while, possibly even weeks, to see any real impact from the upgrade, according to Nansen Blockchain platform Co-Founder and CEO, Alex Svanevik.
“Overall, the reaction is more or less as expected. It is very rare that ethereum benefits from any immediate upside following such network upgrades, although a bias tends to materialize over time,” head of research at Synergia Capital, Denis Vinokourov said.
