Ethereum is approaching Bitcoin's market capitalization, trailing closely at 31% of the total cryptocurrency market cap. Ether has gathered strong support from developers and investors since its release in 2015 and its market capitalization has grown substantially. There is speculation that Ether will soon overtake Bitcoin as the dominant cryptocurrency, an event referred to as "The Flippening."

1. A Challenger Appears: Ethereum Approaches
Bitcoin Market Capitalization

2. Cryptocurrency Market Cap
At the start of 2017, the global cryptocurrency market cap, that is,
the total value of all cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Litecoin, was
just under $18 billion USD. This was already a very promising
increase from just $7.1 billion the year before. Compared to what
was about to come however, even that increase seems minuscule.
As of mid-June 2017, cryptocurrencies have reached a global
market cap of just over $115 billion. That’s a 533% increase in less
than half a year!

3. Trends
Payza has been keeping a close eye on the exciting
new cryptocurrency trends, and in 2014, became one
of the first e-wallets to allow its members to load and
withdraw from their accounts using Bitcoin.

4. Bitcoin vs. Altcoins
Until a few months ago, Bitcoin’s dominance, or the percentage of
Bitcoin’s total value compared to the total combined cryptocurrency
value, held steadily between 80% and 90%. Since March, however,
there has been a tremendous rise in both awareness and value of
Bitcoin alternatives, dubbed Altcoins. As a result, Bitcoin’s
dominance has dropped significantly, making up just under 40% of
total cryptocurrency value as of mid-June.

5. Trailing closely at 31% of the total
cryptocurrency market cap, a challenger
seems eager to take Bitcoin’s throne: Ether.

6. Ether

7. Ether
Built on the Ethereum computing platform, Ether (ETH) was
released in May 2015 and has since gathered strong support from
developers and investors alike, despite a hard fork in 2016 that
prompted the creation of the Ethereum Classic (ETC). Following the
success of the network and a growing market capitalization, multiple
ventures are aiming to use Ethereum for projects related to finance,
energy sourcing and pricing, sports betting, the internet-of-things,
etc.

8. Ether
With an adoption rate that rivals that of Bitcoin, both experts
and enthusiasts are becoming reluctant to use the term
‘altcoin’ when referring to Ether. There’s even speculation
within the community that Ether will soon overtake the
current leader, an event humorously named “The
Flippening.”

9. The Enterprise Ethereum Alliance

10. With partners from multiple Fortune 500 companies (Microsoft, J.P.
Morgan, Intel, etc.), research groups and blockchain startups, the
nonprofit organization Enterprise Ethereum Alliance was established in
March 2017 with a vision: to augment the Ethereum blockchain by
creating a private version (currently known as EnEth 1.0), based on a
reference architecture focusing on confidentiality, privacy, scalability
and security. It will facilitate collaboration, as everything created will be
open-source, making the EEA evolve alongside the public Ethereum
community in harmony.

11. A Surge of ICOs

12. Part of the extraordinary increase in cryptocurrency value during the
second quarter of 2017 is attributed to growing cryptocurrency
awareness, the creation of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance, but also
to a multiplication of successful Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs),
crowdfunding campaigns dedicated to projects that build upon the
Blockchain to provide solutions to existing problems or to future-proof
the technology. Among the top ten crowdfunding projects, six are
cryptocurrency-related, all based on the Ethereum blockchain: Bancor,
the DAO, AEternity, MobileGo, Basic Attention Token and Aragon.

13. These projects, which have raised just over $477m,
show tremendous support for the Ethereum
blockchain, which was itself crowdfunded in
September 2014 for $18m, a figure that pales in
comparison of recent investments.

14. Altcoins and Payza

15. Payza has kept a watchful eye over all
cryptocurrency developments, not just
developments related to Bitcoin. As such, we’ve
already started exploring and developing new ways to
incorporate Ether and other Altcoins into our global
online payment platform.

16. As cryptocurrency and blockchain technology advances,
it is becoming increasingly clear that these currencies
will make up a meaningful part of the global e-
commerce ecosystem. The only questions that remain
are which coins will emerge as the market leaders, and
how much of global e-commerce volume will
cryptocurrency payments make up?

17. About Payza
Payza is an award-winning online payments technology platform used by licensed entities
around the world. Payza's highly secure platform provides businesses and consumers
with convenient and flexible solutions for sending and receiving payments worldwide. The
company offers access to payment services in both traditional and emerging markets, as
well as a host of tools and services including: fraud screening, dispute resolution,
currency exchange, global payouts and disbursement services. With millions of members,
Payza offers its services around the world in 21 currencies, and is proud to provide its
merchants around the globe with a complete solution for accepting payments and
managing their businesses.
More information is available about Payza on its website, http://www.payza.com,
Facebook, Twitter and the company's blog.