Following bitcoin's climb and boosted by reports of more blockchain usage, ether, the world's second biggest cryptocurrency, reached an all-time high on Wednesday.
The ether token, which serves as the foundation for the Ethereum blockchain network, surged to a high of $4,643 in Asian hours, surpassing the previous day's high of $4,600 and extending the week's gains to more than 10% of the total.
Since bitcoin, the world's most valuable cryptocurrency, reached a new all-time high of $67,016 on Oct 20, other tokens on the blockchain's base layer, known as Layer 1 networks, have gained in popularity and value.
Bitcoin (BTC) was trading around $63,078 at the time of writing and has gained approximately 117% this year, while ether has increased six-fold.
"Ether's strength has been growing in lockstep with Bitcoin and other majors since the market reversal at the end of September," said Ryan Rabaglia, managing chief and global director of trading at digital asset platform OSL.
"Ethereum has emerged as the big victor of the Layer-1s in what we anticipate will be a significant shift in market sentiment during a potentially sustained upswing in the stock market," Rabaglia said in quotes by Reuters.
Ethereum will also continue to play a significant role in the development of the nonfungible token and metaverse ecosystems, he added.
Since October, a steady stream of news about cryptocurrency adoption by banks, the growth of NFTs, the launch of bitcoin futures-based U.S. exchange-traded funds, and the interest among investors for diversification in an uncertain interest rate environment have all contributed to the rise in price of several blockchain tokens, including ether and bitcoin.
Following the recent rebranding of Facebook into Meta, smaller tokens have also seen rising interest.
The Commonwealth Bank of Australia, the country's largest bank, announced on Wednesday that it will be the first in the country to offer cryptocurrency services to retail customers.
In October, assets under management (AUM) in digital investment products rose 46% to a record high of $75 billion, CryptoCompare said.
The total AUM for bitcoin-based products grew 52% to $55 billion, while ethereum-based funds AUM increased 30% to $16 billion, record highs for both categories.
