The race for global cryptocurrency supremacy is hardly a race at all. The top player when it comes to investing is bitcoin, which is so big that its market capitalization is worth more than the combined market caps of the next 10 crypto assets.
That doesn’t mean bitcoin is the only crypto worth investing in, though. Another name getting a lot of attention lately is ethereum, the No. 2 crypto with a price of about $4,333 and a market cap of roughly $523 billion.
Although those numbers don’t come close to bitcoin’s — which boasts a price of $117,900 and a market cap above $2.3 trillion — ethereum still stands out because of its recent growth and potential as a winning investment. Here are some reasons it’s worth a look.
Much of ethereum’s growth has been driven by corporate and institutional investors who don’t want to pay bitcoin prices. Those firms include both large players like Coinbase Global and lesser-known names such as BitMine Immersion Technologies and SharpLink Gaming.
Many investors are gravitating toward ethereum because it lets them expand into the technology infrastructure behind digital assets and decentralized finance (DeFi), which could make it a good investment.
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In case you’re not familiar with buying and selling ethereum, it’s a decentralized, peer-to-peer network that enables the development of other cryptos. On it, developers can build and run applications, which are built using smart contracts, when you buy cryptocurrency.
Ethereum is the market leader in infrastructure that lets businesses and consumers transact among each other without a central bank. Both ethereum and bitcoin are decentralized digital currencies.
“Ethereum lets anyone … create their own token and thus their own community and incentivize communities with an economy basically,” Ray Youssef, CEO of NoOnes, a crypto marketplace, told Yahoo Finance. “You could argue it has more utility than bitcoin.”
That utility helps explain why ethereum has been on a recent hot streak with investors. After touching a 2025 low of $1,387 in early April, its price has since risen more than 170%. Although ethereum still hasn’t returned to its all-time high set in 2021, it recently hit its highest point in more than 3 1/2 years.
Ethereum should keep trending higher as it draws interest from more companies, experts say. For example, digital asset platform Bit Digital recently announced that it moved its entire treasury from bitcoin to ethereum.
“We believe Ethereum has the ability to rewrite the entire financial system,” Bit Digital CEO Sam Tabar said in a press release. “Bit Digital is aligning itself with Ethereum’s long-term potential and positioning itself as a focused Ethereum treasury platform in the public markets.”
Ethereum has also gotten a boost from two new pieces of legislation. The Genius Act, which focuses on regulations for stablecoins, was signed by President Trump in mid-July. The Clarity Act, which provides a regulatory framework for digital assets, is currently going through Congress.
The combination of these acts might create a sort of financial windfall for ehereum’s future development, thanks to its strong positions in both stablecoins and DeFi.
Ultimately, ethereum has some tailwinds that could spell good news in the future, but investors should do their due diligence before deciding to invest, as well as consider their own risk tolerance and financial goals.
This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: Companies Are Buying a Crypto That’s Not Bitcoin — Should You Invest Too?
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