The Ethereum (ETH) price has built on its overnight gain during morning trade and is up close to 4.5% over the last 24 hours to US$867.64 according to Coin Market Cap.
This means that the world's second-largest cryptocurrency now has a market capitalisation of approximately US$84.7 billion, equating to a 19.6% share of the US$432.2 billion global cryptocurrency market.
It certainly has been an impressive turnaround for Ethereum. This time last week the crypto market was going through an almighty sell-off, leading to the ETH price falling as low as US$574. Which means that Ethereum has now climbed over 51% from its low in the space of a week.
What happened?
Ethereum and its crypto peers bitcoin (BTC), Ripple (XRP), and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) have been on a strong run over the last few days thanks to increasingly positive sentiment amongst cryptocurrency traders.
Trader sentiment has been improving greatly ever since U.S. regulators stated their intention to make the industry safer, rather than ban it altogether.
Although this may take the form of strict regulations, judging by the price reaction, some traders may have been concerned that the industry was on the verge of being banned altogether in the United States.
Should you buy Ethereum?
I wouldn't be in a rush to buy Ethereum. Although I think there's a strong probability that its price will continue to rise as long as trader sentiment remains positive, we have seen time and time again that it doesn't take long for things to change.
Whilst there's nothing obvious on the horizon at the moment, I'm sure behind the scenes a number of governments are looking into further potential crackdowns.
One to look out for which I think could rattle the market is a rumoured ban by Chinese regulators on access to exchanges outside the country.
As China makes up a good portion of daily crypto trade, should a total ban occur for Chinese citizens then I fear it could lead to a similarly severe sell-off to the one we saw earlier this month.
