Ethereum prices surged on Monday to record levels, after bitcoin also hit all-time highs, as appetite for digital assets continues to grow.This is a record level which marks a more than 5,001 percent rise in price since Jan.1, when ethereum was trading at $7.98.It comes after bitcoin traded above $3,000 for the first time on Sunday, continuing its huge rally for the year."The strong interest in bitcoin does boost investors' appetite for alternative cryptocurrencies where superior gains are also being seen," Pavel Matveev, co-founder of Wirex, a personal finance app that provides a cryptocurrency wallet and debit card, told CNBC by email."There is some correlation between cryptocurrencies in this sense but there is also fundamental demand for Ethereum in its own right.Ethereum and bitcoin aren't directly competing as they serve different needs."Ether is the name of the cryptocurrency which runs on the ethereum blockchain, which is the technology that underpins the digital coin.But ethereum is often used as shorthand for the digital currency as well.

Ethereum has been designed to support so-called smart contract applications.A smart contract is a computer program that can automatically execute the terms of a contract when certain conditions are met.This use has excited many investors.Ether is the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, worth around $36 billion, according to Coinmarketcap, below bitcoin's $48.91 billion valuation.Why has it rallied?A number of developments in the ethereum community have supported the price rise.bitcoin glossary of termsThese include: The formation of a group called the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA) aimed at linking large enterprises to technology vendors to work on blockchain projects.ukip bitcoinCompanies such as Microsoft and JPMorgan are involved.bitcoin shellshock

A surge in so-called initial coin offerings (ICO) which are a new way for cryptocurrency start-ups to raise money.Vitalik Buterin, founder of Ethereum, recently met with Russian President Vladimir Putin, signaling that the country might be looking to use the blockchain, giving it further legitimacy.Singapore's government released a report detailing a test it had carried out to digitalize a national currency using ethereum blockchain technology.bitcoin millionaire lost"Ethereum's market message at the moment is that of the underdog to bitcoin with more potential.fazer compras com bitcoinThe complexity of the developing ethereum ecosystem is galvanizing adherents as well as displaying the functionality that it has to offer," Charlie Hayter, CEO of industry website Cryptocompare, told CNBC by email.dogecoin value right now

Where does the price go next?Nicola Duke, a technical analyst at analysis platform Forex Analytix, said that ethereum has pushed through $377, which is a key "resistance level."This is a price that is reached but not exceeded by traders.But now that it is through this level, the next leg up in ethereum could see it reach $476 soon.Duke is a technical analyst using historical price activity to forecast future price movement.Meanwhile, Wirex's Matveev said that $600 by the end of the year is within reach, which would mark a 47 percent increase from Monday's high.ethereum public key to addressWATCH: These are the unexpected winners of the cryptocurrency crazebitcoin mining linux vs windowsIt has now been 14 days since I started my Ethereum journey, and how far I've come.ethereum trading volume

I started out with a single 4-way GPU system that I turned into two PCs with seven graphics cards between them, and then into four systems with 12 graphics cards, and then it all went a little blurry...I'm now sitting with 12 systems spread out across 40 graphics cards, thanks to the biggest asset of them all: PCIe x1 to PCIe x16 risers.Without these, I would be stuck at closer to 20-25 graphics cards.There's a mix of NVIDIA and AMD in there, with a bunch of NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060s because of their great power efficiency - mixed in with GTX 1070s, GTX 1080s, and GTX 1080 Ti cards.Spread throughout their own, and intertwined systems are also the cryptocurrency beasts: Radeon R9 Fury series cards, and the impossible to find Radeon RX 400 and RX 500 series cards.There's a heap of RX 470/480/570/580 cards, but the R9 Nano, R9 Fury, and R9 Fury X cards are still Ethereum mining behemoths.They have special places in three different systems, with one dedicated to Fiji-based GPUs, while another two systems are dedicated to Radeon RX series graphics cards.

For the systems with 750W/850W PSUs, I've used the power efficient GTX 1060s thanks to their single 6-pin PCIe power connector.I started on June 6, and by June 7, you can see I was hitting 300MH/s without a problem.At that point, I wrote the "I'm making $900 per month mining Ethereum, I want MORE!"article, which has since blown up.This was when the bug started, and off I went on this adventure.After reaching 300MH/s, I was keen to double it within a few days and slowly venture up to the peak of 1GH/s of Ethereum mining.The price was rising every day, and so was the difficulty - timing was key.I had three more systems to use, so I filled them with the fastest hardware I had - but it was too much for my small three bedroom house and its weak power delivery.I reached just shy of 500MH/s within 24 hours of adding new systems but had to switch out the 1200W/1500W PSUs with smaller, more power efficient PSUs.Another 48 hours later and some PSU shuffling around, without additional hardware purchases, I hit another wall @ 600MH/s with the last system I had in parts assembled.Shopping InformationPRICING: You can find the product discussed for sale below.