Ethereum reached the 850th threshold for the first time and continues to grow.

Ethereum’s value has passed the $850 mark for the first time since its creation, setting a new all –time high while decentralized applications such as CryptoKitties and EtherDelta have given some strong performances.

Ether is still rising

Ether, the cryptocurrency that is native to the Ethereum blockchain network, has made a $3.8 billion daily trading volume in the last three years. In just the last 24 hours, on 19th of December, Ether’s price shot up with almost 20% from $716 to $840.

Excepting Bitcoin Cash, NEM and Qtum, Ether has surpassed every cryptocurrency in the marketplace in a very short time span.

In the past, Ether’s trading volume was focused in the South Korean digital exchange market. Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit, three of South Korea’s leading crypto exchanges, accounted for approximately 35% of global trades involving Ether.

Recently, the crypto exchange market in US has processed most Ether transactions, with Bitfinex and GDAX (Coinbases’s trading platform), settling around $800 million in daily Ether trades.

Mike Novogratz, billionaire fund hedge investor, has expressed his optimism regarding the mid to long-term growth that Ether has been experiencing. He also predicted the price of Ether to triple by the end of the year 2018, from $500 to $1500.

Now, Ether’s price mark has passed the $850 mark and is rapidly growing closer to $900. Some analysts have observed that Ether is highly undervalued, considering that its developer and user activity is much higher than that of other available cryptocurrencies on the market.

What determined Ether’s newest surge?

With the appearance of bitcoin futures, investors in the traditional finance sector are starting to enter the digital currency market. Due to the massive success of decentralized apps such as CryptoKitties and EtherDelta, coupled with the fact that Ethereum is the only cryptocurrency that can rival Bitcoin in terms of development, usability, liquidity and scalability. This cryptocurrency has definitely caught the eye of investors from the cryptocurrency and traditional finance industry.

CryptoKitties had a great contribution in Ether’s latest price increase. As some investors and analysts have problems accepting that Cryptokitties is an operational and legitimate decentralized application, it has proved what potential the Ethereum blockchain has in the decentralized trading of crypto assets.

If the digital cartoon of the app can be swapped with any other digital asset like currency, asset, or security, the finance industry can base a distributed exchange protocol on CryptoKitties’ model.

Due to underlying scalability issues, developers of Ethereum are actively coming up with solutions such as Plasma, Casper and Raiden to rid users and app developers of gas costs and high fees.

But, according to Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, scaling of the Ethereum blockchain could take from three to five years, depending on the development process. As Ethereum grows in scale and technological advances, Ether’s value will also grow in the world of decentralized financing.