Ether, the cryptocurrency native to the Ethereum blockchain, may play a very distant second fiddle amongst the financial press (who, in fairness, seem to have just learned what Bitcoin was pretty recently), but not among more seasoned professionals. Ether has seen returns of over 2000% over the past 12 months as Bitcoin has risen a relatively “small” 1200% (it seems odd just writing that).
Grayscale recently opened its Ethereum trust to accredited investors and on February 12 bought 52,730 Ether and 170 Bitcoin. That’s a $94 million purchase in one day, showing that Ether may be “the way” forward. The Ethereum blockchain is enabling most of the decentralized finance going on out there now, and it’s this application, as well as a dominant mindshare among decentralized apps (dApps) generally, that make Ether valuable.
It’s not just Grayscale that’s paying attention to Ether though. Mark Cuban, a noted and successful investor, has recently indicated that he thinks all the innovation is happening on Ethereum, and that “ETH has an advantage over BTC as a store of value.” There you have it – all hail Ether!
