Launched in July 2015, the Ethereum coin includes a programmable smart contract platform and now ranks the second most expensive cryptocurrency after Bitcoin.

Cointelegraph investigated the reasons behind Ethereum performing so well in price after only eight months of existence.

More people are joining the train

Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum's founder, has summarised the reason for the growing price and demand of the cryptocurrency:

“Application developers are seeing that the Ethereum platform is a very powerful technology that offers advantages in a very broad set of areas. There has been a lot of interest in Ethereum applications over the last few months; particularly in January the number of individuals and companies interested in Ethereum private chains, Ethereum-based financial applications, smart contracts, IoT, etc, has all increased greatly.”

Some of the reasons behind this

According to Roman Mandeleil, ether.camp CEO and founder, there are two reasons for Ethereum’s early success:

“The first reason is that the people have come to trust that the network is solid and reliable. Ethereum has had eight months of live network to prove just that.

Secondly, users have noticed that the network is being constantly improved with new products and new services, which is a major attraction for new users who eventually buy ether and consequently push up the price.”

Roman goes on to outline the major products and events that have hugely enhanced the evolution of Ethereum to bring it to its current state of success. He also discusses the promises that Ethereum has to those who are buying into the system. They are:

  • The Foundation - the live chain has been very stable and is moving from its beta version, officially called ‘frontier’, to a semi-’done’ version called ‘homestead’. The code is ready and it’s all going to happen in 1-3 weeks. It will prove that the network infrastructure is continuing to develop, as was planned in the development road-map.
  • Live.ether.camp - the famous blockchain explorer reports that there is growing traffic to the website, increased adoption of the
  • ConsenSys - the venture productions company is making some good engagement partnerships that are going to be very influential in the next few months.
  • The outgoing CTO of Ethereum, Gav Wood, who has initiated a startup called Ethcore, says that they are releasing another implementation of the Ethereum protocol in the Rust programming language, and report that is is having very good performance numbers.
  • Davos - the big finance event which had a section dedicated to Ethereum’s smart contract capabilities.
  • Understanding - a lot of potential investors have been closely watching the developments surrounding this new stabilizing phenomenon.
  • SlockIt - the startup doing IoT on Ethereum includes ex-Ethereum developers who who were making some noise at Davos, so this too can be counted as very solid influential news.