Live since 2015, Ethereum has been a volatile and unpredictable platform of cryptocurrency since its inception. While it's impossible to say one way or another whether any currency or investment is headed for great things, there are positive indications that 2018 may be a good year for Ether. Exact price predictions are difficult to pinpoint, since the price of Ether can fall by as much as 25% in 24 hours, as it did more than once in December of 2017. However, Ether has been growing exponentially in recent months and looks set to continue that trajectory in 2018. In broad terms, cryptocurrencies are still growing stronger every month. The value of Bitcoin has risen by 2,000% in the past year, and while Ethereum is still trailing behind Bitcoin as the second biggest cryptocurrency, it is beginning to catch up: Bitcoin has lost over 50% of its market share to Ethereum in the past four months. Some well-known hedge-fund managers have even predicted that the market cap of the Ether will overtake that of Bitcoin by the end of the year.However, the future of both Ethereum and Bitcoin rests heavily on a number of issues which still plague most cryptocurrencies: for one, many governments are attempting to ban cryptocurrencies due to alleged security issues, and the ease of which cryptocurrency technology can be duplicated means that investors do not yet feel utterly comfortable investing in these currencies. Ethereum, like Bitcoin, operates on blockchain technology, which also puts it at risk of scalability problems, such as the recent fork issue. Investors who do take the plunge into Ethereum should keep track of their investments using reliable price tracker websites and news sources, such as ICO Token News and, of course, Crypto Daily.