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Ether soared more than 10% Monday as more crypto enthusiasts anticipate the upcoming network update following comments from an Ethereum Foundation member last week. 

The second largest cryptocurrency behind bitcoin, traded at $1,476.04 early Monday and is 48.55% higher over the last month. 

However, amid the broader crypto winter, ether is still 60% lower this year after it blasted above an all-time high price of $4,700 in November. 

The highly anticipated merge, dubbed "Ethereum 2.0," is meant to transition ethereum from the energy-intensive proof-of-work consensus mechanism to the more efficient proof-of-stake model. 

Over the weekend, the Ethereum Foundation's Tim Beiko said the merge could take place the week of September 19. 

The proof-of-work is a system that relies on mining. Miners use strong CPUs to solve complicated equations and get rewards with a particular cryptocurrency from the blockchain ecosystem. Proof-of-work is highly criticized for its binarily high energy consumption and high costs. On the other hand, the proof-of-stake model isn’t power-intensive, and the blockchain validates blocks based on transactions instead of mining. The transition into PoS has been on the to-do list of Thereum since its launch in 2015. 

So far, the Solana and Tezos blockchains have adopted proof-of-stake mechanisms. 

In April, Ethereum tested the proof-of-stake infrastructure in what was known as a "shadow fork," to determine client readiness and logistics of the switch. 

Meanwhile, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin tweeted last week about his support of proof-of-stake protocols for cryptocurrencies.