Ether (ETH), the native cryptocurrency of the Ethereum blockchain, continued its recent torrid run, setting a new record price Saturday of over $3,800. This comes amid speculation the network’s value might soar as more traders warm to the potential of decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-fungible tokens (NFT) on Ethereum.

• The new all-time high price of $3,855.40 came less than a week after the cryptocurrency topped $3,000 for the first time. Ether has since given back some of its gains and is now at $3,839.98, up 8.96% over the last 24 hours.
• The price of the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap has quadrupled just this year alone, outperforming bitcoin (BTC), the largest cryptocurrency, which has doubled.
• Ether now has market capitalization of $443.8 billion, exceeding that of Johnson & Johnson, Walmart and UnitedHealth.
• Should ether continue on its upward trend, it won’t be long before its market cap is half that of bitcoin’s $1.107 trillion.
• The latest price move comes amid signs of growing interest in ether from big institutional investors and Wall Street firms.
• Late last month, the Wall Street investment research firm FundStrat predicted ether could surge to $10,000 this year, powered by enthusiasm over DeFi’s growth and advances in Internet-based financial applications.
• As for bitcoin, the price of the leading cryptocurrency is nearing $60,000 again, up 2.73% to $59.207.09 at press time.