One of the most important virtual currencies in the market, Ethereum (ETH), has reached new levels on May the 3rd. At the moment is being traded around $750 dollars and is one of the top gainers today. The price could have been influenced due to the fact that Reddit may include it on its platform for Reddit Gold purchases. Furthermore, Reddit Co-Founder, Alexis Ohanian, said that ETH could reach $15,000 this year.
Ethereum Ecosystem Grows
With the latest developments taking place in Ethereum, there are some experts that believe that this year the platform will reach new records. 
The first thing to mention is that Reddit CTO, Chris Slower, said that Ethereum (ETH) could be accepted on Reddit in order to pay for Reddit Gold. After dropping Bitcoin support for different reasons, the platform is planning to add new virtual currencies, including ETH and LTC. (BTC will also be included).
At the same time, Reddit Co-Founder, Alexis Ohanian, explained that by the end of the year, each ETH could be worth $15,000.
In a conversation with Term Sheet, Ohanian said that by the end of the year Ethereum could reach $15,000:
“At the end of the year, Bitcoin will be at $20,000. And Ethereum will be at $15,000. Great, now people can call me out if I’m wrong.”
But that’s not all. The third to mention about Ethereum and its growth is that the platform is being used by companies, ICOs, and other important institutions. And that’s causing a problem: how to easily scale?
Well, there is a clear demand for Ethereum’s platform. But it will not be effective if it finds problems to scale. Some days ago we wrote an article in which we mentioned that Vitalik Buterin was working in a scalability solution for Ethereum.
The scaling solution proposed is known as Sharding and would allow nodes to verify transactions in a much smoother way.
James Ray, Ethereum developer, wrote:
“In large part because of this [verification process], Bitcoin is limited to 3-7 transactions per second, Ethereum to 7-15, etc. However, this poses a question: are there ways to create a new mechanism, where only small subset of nodes verifies each transaction?”
The answer to this question has been given by Mr. Buterin:
“The basic idea is based on a concept of dependent fork choice rules. First, there is a proof of stake beacon chain (in phase 4, aka full casper, this will just be merged into the main chain), which is tied to the main chain; every beacon chain block must specify a recent main chain block, and that beacon chain block being part of the canonical chain is conditional on the referenced main chain block being part of the canonical main chain.”
Other Important Ethereum News
LocalEthereum has decided to add 22 new payment methods in order to buy Ether. In this way, more individuals and investors would have access to one of the most important virtual currencies in the market. Among the payment methods accepted we find: Venmo, Skrill, Payeer, Mercado Pago, SEPA, and Money Gram.
If all of that was not enough, the Ethereum Foundation announced that they have funded 22 recipients for a total of $2.84 million dollars. These grants will allow diverse teams of developers to support the entire ecosystem and help make Ethereum more scalable, useful and secure.
In the future, other start-ups will be receiving funds from the Ethereum Foundation in order to improve the entire ecosystem.
