Aside from general enthusiasm about crypto, you could say people are hanging Ethereum for more utility based purposes these days - defi dapps built on top of the ETH blockchain have been on the rise and creating tokens also on the ETH blockchain that have their own liquidity. So if a token on the ETH blockchain is gaining value and to use that token you'd need Ethereum usually to pay for gas (to power transactions) and pretty much most of the defi boom is taking place on ETH blockchain, so without ETH existing, a lot of those other successful things wouldn't either - more like investing in the Power Company than placing a bet on which company will produce the most lightbulbs (maybe a poor analogy but that's all I've got for now).
The other thing that really drove ETH up recently and maybe I should have bought some then was moving from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake and the rush to fill out the deposit contract. It seemed to just steadily increase from around $300 once people started getting enthusiastic about filling up the Proof of Stake contract getting it around $600. Once it was filled it seemed to kind of stagnate around $500 for a week and then started going bananas again. Part of that goes with the bitcoin rally - seeing a BTC push 40K opens peoples eyes and brings them in - and BTC sometimes outperforms ETH on the day. What I've noticed though when there is a market pullback for crypto, the pull back Bitcoin often seems to exceed that of Ethereum, which holds it's ground more so.
I'd say there are definitely people who believe more in ETH than Bitcoin for informed reasons. Whether they are like me and intend to use it or just think its a good economic bet at 1200 bucks a pop, can't say - but what I said above are definitely things setting ETH apart at this moment.
chairmanmow|5 years ago
The other thing that really drove ETH up recently and maybe I should have bought some then was moving from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake and the rush to fill out the deposit contract. It seemed to just steadily increase from around $300 once people started getting enthusiastic about filling up the Proof of Stake contract getting it around $600. Once it was filled it seemed to kind of stagnate around $500 for a week and then started going bananas again. Part of that goes with the bitcoin rally - seeing a BTC push 40K opens peoples eyes and brings them in - and BTC sometimes outperforms ETH on the day. What I've noticed though when there is a market pullback for crypto, the pull back Bitcoin often seems to exceed that of Ethereum, which holds it's ground more so.
I'd say there are definitely people who believe more in ETH than Bitcoin for informed reasons. Whether they are like me and intend to use it or just think its a good economic bet at 1200 bucks a pop, can't say - but what I said above are definitely things setting ETH apart at this moment.