The price of ether, the cryptocurrency that powers the world's second-largest blockchain platform, ethereum, passed $100 today to reach a new all-time high today.

Up 25% over the last 24 hours, the price of ether has now increased more than 1,000% on the year. (It was trading at roughly $8 on 1st January.) At press time, the cryptocurrency had a market cap of $9bn, according to figures from data source Coinmarketcap, a service that aggregates the price across available exchange APIs.

The development further comes at a time when the network is fast gaining traction among open-source innovators and enterprise firms.

Not only has ethereum emerged as the principal platform for initial coin offerings (a process by which entrepreneurs working on blockchain projects sell a cryptographically scarce resource to raise funding), but major institutions including JP Morgan and Bank of America are developing projects on private versions of its software.

On the markets side, the development comes amid strong and continued demand for the token.

Ether volume accounts for 20% of the total cryptocurrency market volumes, below bitcoin (46%) and ahead of litecoin (11.38%), according to Coinmarketcap data.

Overall, the milestone comes just a day after analysts predicted the ether price would push above the $100-mark amid what they described as a "massive bull run".

For more information on ether, explore CoinDesk's new Ethereum Guides.

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