--- title: Ether Rises to Record High Over Surge in Ethereum Blockchain description: The digital asset gained as much as 3.5% to $4,403.93 on bullish sentiment surrounding an upgrade to the Ethereum network. canonical: https://time.com/6111700/ether-ethereum-record-high/ author: TIME article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2021-10-29T04:37:07.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-24T10:28:46.259Z article:section: Business og:title: Ether Rises to Record High Over Surge in Ethereum Blockchain og:description: Ether has far outperformed Bitcoin throughout this year with a sixfold increase amid surging investor interest og:url: https://time.com/6111700/ether-ethereum-record-high/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt34aaa4572d1ff566/698a1e3e09208f0194418672/GettyImages-901948904.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Stack of Ether coins with gold background og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Ether Rises to Record High Over Surge in Ethereum Blockchain twitter:description: Ether has far outperformed Bitcoin throughout this year with a sixfold increase amid surging investor interest twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt34aaa4572d1ff566/698a1e3e09208f0194418672/GettyImages-901948904.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Ether Rises to a Record High as Use of the Ethereum Blockchain Surges by [Eric Lam and Crystal Kim / Bloomberg](/author/bloomberg/) ## Eric Lam and Crystal Kim / Bloomberg Oct 29, 2021 4:37 AM CUT  MORGANTOWN, WV - 31 DECEMBER 2017: Ethereum or ether coin lying on top of similar golden coins to illustrate cybercurrencies MORGANTOWN, WV - 31 DECEMBER 2017: Ethereum or ether coin lying on top of similar golden coins to illustrate cybercurrenciesGetty Images by [Eric Lam and Crystal Kim / Bloomberg](/author/bloomberg/) ## Eric Lam and Crystal Kim / Bloomberg Oct 29, 2021 4:37 AM CUT Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency, soared to a record above $4,400 Friday on bullish sentiment surrounding an upgrade to the Ethereum network and rival Bitcoin’s recent rally to a high of its own. The digital asset gained as much as 3.5% to $4,403.93, topping the previous record of $4,379.62 reached in May. Other smaller tokens including Binance Coin and Solana rallied. Ether is now worth about $520 billion, according to data from [CoinGecko.com](https://www.coingecko.com/en "undefined"). Ether’s latest milestone comes as the digital token has far outperformed Bitcoin throughout this year with a sixfold increase amid surging retail and institutional investor interest in the space. Bitcoin has risen some 40% this month to reach a record of almost $67,000 following the debut of the first Bitcoin-linked exchange-traded fund in the U.S. Ether underpins the affiliated Ethereum Network, the dominant blockchain used for thousands of decentralized applications. The system got a further boost this week after a successful upgrade designed to make it faster and more energy-efficient. “On-chain activity metrics for Ethereum appear to have found support and are reaching multi-month highs,” said Sean Farrell and Will McEvoy, digital asset strategists with Fundstrat in a report Thursday. Measures including transaction rate, new addresses and active addresses have shown strong growth this month after suffering declines in May, the strategists said. —_With assistance from Joanna Ossinger and Sunil Jagtiani_ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6111700/ether-ethereum-record-high/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6111700/ether-ethereum-record-high/"},"headline":"Ether Rises to a Record High as Use of the Ethereum Blockchain Surges","datePublished":"2021-10-29T04:37:07.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-24T10:28:46.259Z","description":"Ether has far outperformed Bitcoin throughout this year with a sixfold increase amid surging investor interest","url":"https://time.com/6111700/ether-ethereum-record-high/","keywords":["Cryptocurrency","wire","overnight"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt34aaa4572d1ff566/698a1e3e09208f0194418672/GettyImages-901948904.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Eric Lam and Crystal Kim / Bloomberg"}],"articleSection":"Business","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt34aaa4572d1ff566/698a1e3e09208f0194418672/GettyImages-901948904.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Stack of Ether coins with gold background","caption":"Stack of Ether coins with gold background","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/business/","name":"Business"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/cryptocurrency/","name":"Cryptocurrency"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/6111700/ether-ethereum-record-high/","name":"Ether Rises to a Record High as Use of the Ethereum Blockchain Surges"}}]}] ```