Bitcoin, Ether Set New All-Time Highs Amid Market Boom

The price of bitcoin and ether, the digital tokens that power the bitcoin and ethereum blockchains, reached new all-time highs today.

At press time, bitcoin had topped $2,500 and a total market capitalization of $40bn for the first time ever. Ether, currently the second-largest by market capitalization, hit $228.37 at roughly 13:30 UTC, according to CoinMarketCap.

By rising to this level, ether prices surpassed the previous record of $201.75 set on 22nd May, though at the time of report, the cryptocurrency's price had fallen back somewhat, trading at $188.18.

Bitcoin and ether's price rose to this record level amid a broader rise in investments in cryptocurrencies, with others like zcash, hitting multi-month highs.

Several analysts pointed to the general increase in attention on cryptographic assets of late as reason for the gain, with the CEO of Fidelity making a public statement of her enthusiasm for both bitcoin and ether yesterday at CoinDesk's Consensus 2017 conference.

Fidelity's statement coincided with an announcement that the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance, a consortium focused on harnessing ethereum's technology for enterprise, had more than tripled in size as helping fuel ether's recent price gains.

The alliance announced the addition of 86 members, including major corporations Merck, Samsung and Toyota.

An announcement

by JP Morgan that it would seek to use the open-source tech underlying zcash further impacted the price of that asset, with analysts largely crediting this move to its price breakout this week.

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