Echoing the rise of bitcoin, the price of Ethereum cryptocurrency came close to $19, its market capitalisation reaching $1.5 billion. The interest of the media seems to be one of the growth engines.

Over the last week, the price of ether went up by 35%, and almost by 16% in the last twenty-four hours. Today at 10 pm GMT, ether price reached $18.44. However, it has already beaten the $19 mark earlier this day. Following the rise of the previous week, the market capitalisation of ETH stands above $1.5 billion. Only a month ago, the figure was $1 billion and the price equalled $13 per ether. The rise is partly fuelled by intensive trading activity: ETH trading volume for yesterday was as high as $56 million.

Experts note that the media has been very favourable towards Ethereum recently, in particular, after a series of successful interviews with the system developers and positive dynamics of The DAO crowdsale campaign. The platform was created to finance Ethereum-based projects at an early stage of development. The crowdsale that lasted one month attracted over $132 million.

Besides, not long ago two leading Australian bitcoin exchanges announced the launch of new services that would allow customers to purchase ethers, as well as other altcoins. In particular, CoinTree exchange supports the exchange of bitcoin to a number of popular altcoins including ether, litecoin and The DAO tokens. CoinLoft has also introduced ether purchases.

However, the most important reason for the growth of ether is, according to some experts, the skyrocketing rise of bitcoin from the end of May 2016. On 13 June, the bitcoin cryptocurrency reached $697, for the first time in two years coming close to $700. The price of litecoin also followed the lead of bitcoin, now standing at about $5.21.

Anna Lavinskaya