Independent financial consulting firm deVere Group, known for providing investment and financial management services, recently revealed it believes the second largest cryptocurrency by market cap, Ethereum (ETH), will see its price rise fourfold by year-end, meaning it’ll hit $2,500.

The firm predicted the cryptocurrency’s rise thanks to three main factors. The first one, according to MarketWatch, is an increase in the number of platforms using Ethereum as a means of trading, effectively affecting demand.

The second is the increased use of Ethereum smart contracts, while the third was the decentralization of cloud computing. Growing adoption, according to deVere Group’s founder and CEO Nigel Green, will help Ethereum hit a new record this year.

He said:

“The price of Ethereum is predicted to increase significantly this year, and could hit $2,500 by the end of 2018 with a further increase by 2019 and 2020.”

Green added that it is only a matter of time until cryptocurrency markets become regulated, which will result in better investor protection and confidence. Following bitcoin’s record-breaking surge last December, Green stated that we should expect to see sharp moves on the cryptocurrency’s charts, “followed by subsequent corrections.”

At press time, Ethereum is trading at $683.78, and is up by 0.37 percent in the last 24-hour period, according to data from CryptoCompare. The cryptocurrency has been embroiled in controversy, as some community members believe a chain split may be approved to “rescue” $320 million worth of Ether that were frozen due to a bug in Parity’s multi-signature wallet smart contract library.

Parity Technologies itself has recently released a statement revealing it has “no intention to split the Ethereum chain.” Recently, some outlets’ reports on EIP-999, the code that could lead to a chain split, were coitized by the cryptocurrency’s founder Vitalik Buterin.

As covered, the coverage, along with other factors, saw Buterin announced he would boycott this year’s Consensus conference, organized by CoinDesk. His announcement led to a widespread debate on journalistic ethics, as one of his reasons was CoinDesk linking to a scam in one of its articles.