Ethereum Leads Gains in Cryptocurrencies, While Bitcoin Lags Behind

Ethereum saw the most significant gains among cryptocurrencies on Thursday, while Bitcoin struggled to maintain its value around a stable mark.

Ethereum rose by 2.8% over the past 24 hours, reaching $291.23 by 10:39 AM ET. This increase followed an update from Vitalik Buterin, the network’s co-founder, regarding the Casper protocol upgrade aimed at addressing scaling problems.

In a detailed series of 75 posts on Wednesday, Buterin indicated that this upgrade, designed to enhance transaction speeds, is progressing well. Currently, Ethereum’s transaction speeds range from three to seven transactions per second, which is notably lower than the thousands that credit card companies can process.

Joseph Lubin, another co-founder of Ethereum, also spoke to Bloomberg on Wednesday, noting that speculative trading is contributing to market volatility. However, he expressed confidence that the recent drop in prices would not hinder the development of core infrastructure or broader adoption.

While Ethereum was leading gains among the major alternative cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin remained relatively stagnant. The market leader increased by just 0.3%, trading at $6,350.

In other cryptocurrency movements, there was a 2.52% rise for another token, bringing its value up to $0.29058, which eased its weekly decline to 7.6%. Another cryptocurrency, a product of a Bitcoin fork and ranked fourth by market capitalization, increased by 1.8% to $523.07.