Ethereum's ETH/USD Handsome Rally Infuses Life in Cheaper Alternatives ENS/USD and ETC/USD

What happened: Ethereum Name Service soared over 45% to become the cryptocurrency market's biggest gainer in the last 24 hours.

As Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) enjoyed a handsome rally on Wednesday, its cheaper alternatives outperformed the marquee asset in the cryptocurrency market.

Here's a look at what happened in the crypto space over the past 24 hours:

Biggest Mover: ENS soared over 45% to become the biggest gainer among the top 100 coins by market capitalization.

The rally catapulted the token to price levels last seen in Jan. 2022, while its market capitalization hit $1 billion after nearly five months.

ENS saw a 520% jump in trading volumes, implying a sharp increase in buying pressure.

Biggest Loser: KLAY dropped nearly 11% to trade at $0.333 over the last day.

Among the top gainers over the past 24 hours were Ethereum Name Service (CRYPTO: ENS), Filecoin (CRYPTO: FIL), Stacks (CRYPTO: STX), Celer Network (CELR), and Ethereum Classic (CRYPTO: ETC).

Among the top losers over the last day were KLAYtn (CRYPTO: KLAY), Aptos (CRYPTO: APT), ImmutableX (CRYPTO: IMX), dYdX (CRYPTO: DYDX), and Lido DAO (CRYPTO: LDO).

Why It Matters: The gains in these lesser-known coins follow Ethereum's sharp upswing, which caused the second-largest cryptocurrency to spike nearly 8%.

Both ENS and ETC are fundamentally different from Ethereum, but many retail investors see them as cheaper alternatives.

In the past too, positive news around Ethereum, such as the approval of spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs), resulted in steeper hikes for these cheaper plays.

Ethereum Classic was created as a hard fork of the original Ethereum chain back in 2016 over disagreements within the community following a hack. The new chain inherited the name Ethereum as we know it, while the original one functions as Ethereum Classic.

ENS, on the other hand, is a token associated with Ethereum Name Service, a decentralized naming system that converts complex, machine-readable names to ones easily understandable by humans.