Ethereum price jumps again as it approaches a new all-time high

Digital currency ethereum gains more than 7% to trade above $1,200 for a second consecutive day. It passed $1,000 over the weekend. Ethereum's market capitalisation is now around $119 billion.

LONDON — The price of cryptocurrency ethereum is closing in on a fresh all-time high during European morning trade on Tuesday as its recent rally shows no signs of stopping. 

Ethereum, the second biggest cryptocurrency after bitcoin, crossed $1,000 per coin for the first time on Friday, and continued to gain over the weekend, surpassing $1,200 on Monday morning, before hitting a fresh record high of $1,261.41 at around 5.00 a.m. GMT.

The cryptocurrency then dipped a little as Monday's trade continued, but has climbed once again on Tuesday, hitting a daily high of $1,217, a gain of roughly 7.5%, at around 8.20 a.m. GMT (3.20 a.m. ET), as the chart below shows:

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Ethereum's recent rally first started after a fourth-quarter report on the performance of the currency — which is a decentralized network for people to run contracts on — showed that transaction volumes on its network doubled, according to a  blog post , "surpassing 10 transactions per second for days at a time."

Ethereum's recent rally means the cryptocurrency now has a market capitalisation of more than $119 billion, according to data provider CoinMarketCap.com. That equates to around 15% of the entire cryptocurrency market.

Ethereum's fortunes have diverged slightly from bitcoin's in early trading this week, with bitcoin dropping more than 8% on Monday. It has since staged a small comeback, but is up just over 1% for the day, as of 8.20 a.m. GMT:

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