Here‘s what happened during November‘s record-breaking performance by Ethereum (ETH)

<p>Institutional investors are becoming more receptive to cryptocurrency investments.</p> <p>The world's second-largest cryptocurrency, with a market capitalisation of US$540 billion, reached an all-time high of US$4,856 on 10 November, according to CoinMarketCap data.</p> <p>Ethereum began November trading at US$4,314 and ended the month at US$4,604. While that was lower than the record set on November 10, the token ended the month up 6.7 percent.</p> <p>As of 30 November, Ethereum had gained 530 percent year to date, far outpacing Bitcoin's (BTC) year-to-date gain of 100 percent.</p> <p>What happened in November with Ethereum?</p> <p>Ethereum's price, like that of other leading cryptocurrencies, is benefiting from increased institutional investor interest.</p> <p>The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA) announced on 3 November that it would become the country's first bank to offer crypto services to its customers.</p> <p>Customers of CommBank will be able to buy, sell, and hold Ether, Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash (BCH), and Litecoin (LTC) via the bank's app. CBA launched the new crypto service in collaboration with cryptocurrency exchange Gemini and blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis.</p> <p>What else contributes to the high performance?</p> <p>Ethereum's strong performance in November, and indeed throughout the calendar year, is also a result of its real-world application factors, most notably smart contracts. </p> <p>As Darren Abrams, managing director of Aus Merchant Investments, a provider of digital currencies, explained to The Motley Fool:</p> <p>Ethereum is a platform that enables the development of a diverse range of decentralised applications. These decentralised applications, or 'dapps,' as they are frequently referred to, are part of a computing revolution dubbed web 3.0... While Bitcoin is critical to the Web 3.0 movement, it has a limited use case. Ether and other blockchains with smart contracts have an almost infinite number of use cases.</p> <p>While crypto investors have pushed Ethe