Ethereum soars to new all-time high above $440

Ethereum

• The price of ether hit an all-time high of $445 Friday morning, according to data from Markets Insider.
• The digital currency is up more than 5,200% year-to-date.

The price of ether, the scorching-hot rival to bitcoin, soared to an all-time high above $445 Friday morning, up more than 9% against the US dollar.

The new high follows a record-setting day for the cryptocurrency on Thursday when it broke through $400 for the first time since June.

Ether has flown under the radar since June, trading close to $300 until the beginning of November when it began to tick up. It is up more than 5,200% year-to-date.

Friday's record followed a bullish prediction about the digital currency by Michael Novogratz, the famed hedge funder turned crypto-investor.

"Just in the last few days Ethereum has started to move, and I actually think it's going to put a new high soon," Novogratz told Bloomberg News on Tuesday.

He also predicted the price of ether will hit $500 before the end of the year.

"There's a lot of positive things happening in the Ethereum ecosystem," Novogratz added.

Hundreds of companies - including JPMorgan, Santander, and UBS - are members of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance, a collaborative group seeking to leverage ether's ethereum blockchain for purposes outside the world of digital currencies.

Ethereum is also the blockchain on which companies run initial coin offerings, the cryptocurrency-based fundraising method, which this year have raised more than $3 billion for tech startups.