It is surely a well-known fact by now that Ethereum is one of the most popular altcoins. Ethereum has had a great year in 2017, experiencing an impressive growth of more than 10,000%. Its market cap stayed at around $90 billion and it seemed that Ethereum can be a very important competitor to bitcoin, which remains the most popular cryptocurrency at the moment.

Ethereum's position at the beginning of 2017:

Given its impressive rise in 2017, many people believe that Ethereum is going to keep on growing and become one of the most valuable cryptocurrencies ever created.

This belief may not be wrong considering that Ethereum is enjoying a lot of success due to the fact that products and companies that are based on this cryptocurrency keep on being launched on the market.

Why did Ethereum grow so much in 2017?

Analysts have claimed that one of the reasons why Ethereum has grown so much in 2017 is linked to the fact that cryptocurrency-based ERC-20 token ICOs have increased a lot. Many businesses managed to get a lot of funds this way. But, that is not all. Applications that are based on Ethereum have sustained the impressive growth of the cryptocurrency in 2017 and are expected to do the same in 2018.

How much will Ethereum grow in 2018?

Some analysts have claimed that the price of Ethereum will increase in accordance with the number of applications based on the cryptocurrency and which are released on the market. Some researchers said that in 2018 and 2019, there will be a 10 times increase when it comes to the number of Ethereum based applications.

Another important aspect why Ethereum is believed to continue to grow in 2018 is linked to the fact that its technology is always improving to meet the demand. There were reportedly revealed some plans to make some big updates to Ethereum in 2018 to improve its technology.

However, maybe one of the main questions on the lips of many investors is if Ethereum will ever be able to reach the value of bitcoin. For the moment, the difference is too high for predictions to be made on this aspect. While Ethereum is valued at $994, with a market cap of around $96.2 billion, bitcoin is valued at $15,200, with a market cap of $255.7 billion.

Analysts believe that Ethereum's potential to grow in 2018 is huge, but if it wants to compete with bitcoin it has to make sure that there will be no incidents that will make the platform go down.

Furthermore, it has to make sure that the number of applications based on Ethereum continue to grow and at a higher pace than in 2017.

Ethereum's competitors are also experiencing high growths

Ethereum also needs to make sure that it will also keep an eye on other competitors, except bitcoin. The altcoin received quite a push back with the increase of Ripple, which managed to take the second position on the market behind bitcoin.

However, there also also some less optimistic predictions related to the cryptocurrency, as some Ethereum predictions for 2018 talked about a limited increase, with a price forecast of $1,500.