Ether's surge is crushing bitcoin's gain this year with a performance gap of more than 400 percentage points

• Ether has surged by 530% during 2021, a stronger gain than bitcoin's doubling in price.
• The performance gap of more than 400 percentage points is the widest since 2015, according to Bloomberg data.

Ether is set to log a winning month for November and its advance of more than 500% during 2021 is running high above that of rival cryptocurrency bitcoin.

The token of the ethereum network popped up as much as 6% to trade above $4,700 on Tuesday. It was on track to rise by more than 8% for November, during which it first crossed above $4,600. That move was driven in part by growth prospects for the blockchain platform from a sharper focus on the metaverse as Facebook, now named Meta, ramped up its commitment to expand in the online, 3-D space.

Ether also stood out on a year-to-date basis, rising by about 530% compared with bitcoin's increase of roughly 101%. The performance gap of more than 400 percentage points between the cryptocurrencies was the widest since 2015, when the ethereum network was launched, according to data from Bloomberg.

Institutional investors pushed $23 million into ethereum products last week, logging the fifth consecutive week of inflows, according to a CoinShares update on Monday.

Ether has benefitted from a series of developments this month. CME Group, the world's largest derivatives exchange, was preparing to launch micro ether futures on December 6. Sandbox, a metaverse gaming platform backed by ethereum, has been drawing in millions of dollars in funding including from Japanese heavyweight Softbank.

Virtual land deals worth millions of dollars on Sandbox and ethereum-based platforms have also bolstered ether.

The cryptocurrency still lags behind bitcoin in terms of market capitalization. It was valued at around $550 billion on Tuesday compared with bitcoin's valuation of $1.1 trillion. But investors are watching to see if ether will take bitcoin's market cap crown. Crypto hedge fund manager Rahul Rai told Insider he believes ether will outgrow bitcoin before the middle of 2022 in what experts call "the flippening".

Bitcoin during Tuesday's session was down nearly 1% at $57,731.