Prices for the cryptocurrency ether continued to climb on Monday after going on a tear for the better part of a year.As of 4:40 p.m., the Ethereum-traded coin was trading at more than $370 per unit, a gain of roughly 6.6% over the last 24 hours, according to CoinMarketCap.Meanwhile bitcoin has dropped nearly 11% to about $2645 per coin.Ether has been one of the best-performing assets of the year, with prices climbing more than 5,000%, according to CNBC.Noting similarly outsize gains on Twitter, the economist Steve Hanke wrote that "this is what a bubble looks like," referring to the phenomenon where investor enthusiasm causes an unsustainable rise in prices.Indeed, concern over high prices has prompted some cryptocurrency enthusiasts to muse that a crash in prices might not be such a bad thing.On one hand, a dip in prices could help draw in more investors who were enticed by a potential "buying opportunity."More customers would also force the platforms to upgrade their capabilities, the thinking goes, which would help digital currencies gain legitimacy.But not all Ethereum proponents expect a crash.

Daniel Vaughn, a programmer who works on Ethereum-based cryptocurrency products, wrote in a message to Mic that enough companies, individuals, and even governments are building products on Ethereum to keep the price marching steadily upward."We will certainly see intermittent corrections here and there," Vaughn said.onde comprar bitcoin barato"But the general trend is definitely upward.circle bitcoin wikiIt's a platform, so we will see companies launching products ... Some will succeed and some will fail, and that will shake some people's confidence."Atop free bitcoin faucetsnew product launch is partly to explain for ether's current rising price: On Monday morning, a new blockchain project called Bancor conducted an "initial coin offering," and raised $153 million worth of ether in a matter of hours, which Vaughn said prompted a "ton of transaction traffic."Theethereum with credit card

fact that it's so much easier for programmers to work with is one reason why Ethereum could surpass bitcoin in value, possibly as early as next year.For more detail about bitcoin, ether, litecoin and more, check out Mic's recent coverage of cryptocurrencies here and here.bitcoin mining greekSign up for The Payoff — your weekly crash course on how to live your best financial life.bitcoin op pcAdditionally, for all your burning money questions, check out Mic's credit, savings, career, investing and health care hubs for more information — that pays off.ethereum competitionYou can head back to our homepage, or check out some great posts.bitcoin co tojestThe price of a single bitcoin tumbled below $1,000 on Friday for the first time in nearly a week as a debate over a controversial software update threatens to split the network.litecoin cash

One bitcoin BTCUSD, +0.33% went for $969 on Friday, according to the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index, a popular gauge of the currency’s value that incorporates pricing data from several of the world’s largest digital-currency exchanges.That is its weakest level since March 18.The $1,000 level has a special significance for bitcoin traders, said Chris Dannen, a founding partner at Iterative Instinct, a small New York-based private-equity fund that trades crypto-assets.Read: Bats submits formal objection to rejection of Winklevoss’s bitcoin ETF Read: Bitcoin takes a beating while rivals soar to all-time highs Read: Price of bitcoin plummets over threat that virtual currency will split “There is a strange attraction that the market has to keeping bitcoin at $1,000,” Dannen said.The world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization has been rattled by a debate over how best to ameliorate the strain on the network caused by rising transaction volume, said Charles Hayter, chief executive officer of CryptoCompare, a company that provides data and analytics about the cryptocurrency market.

A proposed software update that, if approved, would increase the capacity of each “block” in the bitcoin blockchain, allowing the network to process transactions more efficiently.That proposal came dangerously close to achieving the required 75% threshold of support in the bitcoin mining community.Miners are rewarded with new bitcoins for providing the computing power necessary to process transactions.Support for the update appears to have receded in recent days.but the debate is far from settled.Also, the People’s Bank of China has once again moved to tighten oversight of its exchanges, reviving fears that the central bank is looking to crack down on bitcoin trading more broadly.Earlier this week, Huobi, one of the “big three” Chinese bitcoin exchanges, said it would require customers to provide details about the origins of their money, as well as its destination.But it later clarified that these restrictions would only apply to users who have been flagged for anti-money-laundering risks.

Tech & Science Bitcoin Economy CryptocurrencyThe price of bitcoin has fallen almost $50 in the last 24 hours, dropping below $400 for the first time this year.The crash coincides with claims from prominent bitcoin developer Mike Hearn that the crypto-currency has failed as an experiment.Hearn made the comments in a Medium blogpost on Thursday, January 14, announcing that he has sold all of his Bitcoins and will no longer take part in bitcoin development.Following the post, the bitcoin price fell from $430 to $385, according to the CoinDesk price index.The price at the time of publication remains below $400 at $391.“From the start, I’ve always said the same thing: bitcoin is an experiment and like all experiments, it can fail,” Hearn said.“But despite knowing that bitcoin could fail all along, the now inescapable conclusion that it has failed still saddens me greatly.The fundamentals are broken and whatever happens to the price in the short term, the long term trend should probably be downwards.” Tech & Science - Get the best of Newsweek delivered to your inbox The failure is attributed by Hearn to infighting surrounding a core aspect of bitcoin technology.

The main point of contention relates to the size of bitcoin’s blocks—a term used to describe the batches of confirmed transactions shared on bitcoin’s public ledger, the blockchain.When bitcoin was first conceived, the block size was set at 1MB in order to prevent spam and, according to bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto, “keep it small so new users can get going faster”.As bitcoin adoption grows, there have been growing calls for the block size to be increased, however there is a lack of consensus on how best to do it./xldNquSnHv— Nick Szabo (@NickSzabo4) August 19, 2015An open letter signed by key figures in the bitcoin community last August stated: “Our community stands at a crossroads.After lengthy conversations with core developers, miners, our own technical teams, and other industry participants, we believe it is imperative that we plan for success by raising the maximum block size.”Those signing the letter called for the implementation of 8MB blocks by December 2015 through a protocol they developed called Bitcoin XT, which was developed by Hearn and Gavin Andresen, chief scientist at the Bitcoin Foundation.Objections to Bitcoin XT came from various quarters, including bitcoin wallet services and Chinese bitcoin miners—who contribute 50 percent of the processing power required to maintain bitcoin’s network—due to fears surrounding the country’s limited bandwidth.