(Bloomberg) — Ethereum was once seen as the most likely challenger to Bitcoin’s status as the preeminent cryptocurrency and best positioned to make blockchain a more useful technology. Ta.
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But despite hosting Ether, the second most valuable digital token, Bitcoin and many other cryptocurrencies have soared in recent months thanks to President Donald Trump’s embrace. However, Ethereum is struggling to keep up with that pace. Bitcoin is up about 160% in the last year, while Ether is up only 45%.
As the token and its decentralized network regain momentum, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin and the Ethereum Foundation he founded are backing a new startup that hopes to promote Ether as the cryptocurrency of choice for Wall Street. I’m giving it my all.
Vivek Raman, a former bond trader at Nomura Holdings and UBS Group AG, is founding a company called Etherealize with investment from Buterin and the foundation. Buterin’s group confirmed the funding, but the group and Raman declined to say how much. Raman said he and a team of eight full-time employees began operations in New York this month and are marketing Ethereum to financial companies while also building products that make it easier for banks to use the network.
“If there’s ever a time for it to work, it’s now, when all the headwinds that existed in the past have suddenly become tailwinds, from regulation to technology to Ethereum getting ready to have an institutional presence.” said Raman.
Ethereum was launched by Buterin and a team of co-founders in 2015 and quickly gained a reputation as a smarter, more sophisticated alternative to Bitcoin. The new blockchain introduced by Ethereum was designed to host complex financial transactions in so-called smart contracts.
Ethereum was at the center of the massive cryptocurrency boom in 2017 and 2021, with its price rising much faster than Bitcoin.
However, as the industry has revived over the past year, Ethereum has strayed from some common trends. The biggest factor has to do with the increasingly widespread view that Bitcoin is a rare asset that serves as a digital alternative to gold. The idea has gained traction since President Trump began talking about creating a National Strategic Bitcoin Reserve last summer.
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