Ethereum gained an average 12 percent on Friday to rival its highest ever price, while its market cap approaches $2 bln, data shows.

The highest placed altcoin has been riding a wave of popularity after a protracted slump to go from $12 to $20 per coin within a week.

The announcement of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA) this week served to rekindle trading interest in ETH, with the upward trend continuing to see the asset break the $20 barrier once again.

It is now within easy striking distance of its all-time high of $20.78 set in June last year prior to the sudden collapse of The DAO.

Introducing the EEA, Ethereum Co-Founder Vitalik Buterin stated it “can play an important role in standardizing approaches for privacy, permissioning and providing alternative consensus algorithms to improve its usability in enterprise settings.”

“The resources the project and its members are contributing should accelerate the advancement of the Ethereum ecosystem generally,” he added.

The optimism comes as fellow altcoin Dash’s almost inconceivable price rise finally reversed late Thursday, with the asset losing around 10 percent to hover at $40 per coin.