Ether touches $500b market cap for first time, overtaking JPMorgan and Visa

The milestone came as ether hit an all-time high of over $4,370.

• Ether, the native cryptocurrency of the Ethereum network, passed the market cap milestone of $500 billion Wednesday morning.
• Ether's total value climbed as high as $505 billion before pulling back slightly, according to CoinMarketCap data, surpassing financial behemoths JPMorgan ($480 billion) and Visa ($496 billion).
• The milestone came as the cryptocurrency's price hit an all-time high of $4,371, per the CoinDesk 20.
• At press time, ETH is priced at $4,262 with a market cap of $493.65 billion.
• Bitcoin passed the $500 billion milestone in late December 2020 before hitting $1 trillion in February 2021. So ether's market cap is now approaching the 50% mark of bitcoin's.
• Greg Magadini, CEO of Genesis Volatility, has described a $1 trillion ETH market cap as a "no brainer."