The 2021 performance of all three major cryptocurrency media darlings – Bitcoin, Dogecoin, and Shiba Inu – was overshadowed by Ether, which surged over 400% this year.

While the others were grabbing headlines, Ether was securing market attention, it seems. As of Friday, December 31, it was up 410%, according to Coinbase data, trading around $3,730 per coin. While it is much less than Bitcoin, it is still far ahead of any other cryptocurrency on the market, including Twitter favorites Shiba Inu and Dogecoin.

Though still the globe’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, Bitcoin in comparison added only 60% this year to date, swinging back and forth throughout the year from near $30,000 per coin low in mid-summer to a new record high of almost $69,000 in November. It finished the year in the green, but below the anticipated $50,000 benchmark.

Although some analysts claim Ether’s native blockchain – Ethereum – has become too expensive in terms of transaction fees, others believe it has a bright future, especially after the platform rolled out its fee-improving ETH 2.0 upgrade in August.

According to Kevin Owocki, co-founder of Gitcoin, Ethereum aspires to become a “blockchain of blockchains,” which could mean more good news for Ether in the coming year.

“Smart contract platforms are all about being able to build financial applications like legos. Every new lego added on Ethereum makes it better to build on the network,” he said, as cited by Yahoo Finance.

“If I walk into an Ethereum hackathon, I am able to build something in a weekend that 10 years ago would have taken a bank $30 million and a staff of thousands of developers to build.”