FOLLOW US

Ether blasted above a two-month high level after developers successfully completed a final dress rehearsal for the highly anticipated pivotal upgrade.

The world’s second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap soared as high as $1,927 on Thursday, marking its highest level since early June, according to data from CoinMetrics. The token was last trading at $1,912, 5% higher in the last 24 hours.

On Wednesday, ethereum tested a final dry run for the “merge,” a critical event that will make mining the digital coin faster and more energy-efficient. One of Ethereum's test networks, called Goerli, simulated a process identical to what the main network will execute in September.

The merge will move Ethereum from the proof-of-work system to the proof-of-stake mode. Proof-of-work consensus mechanisms depend on crypto miners to verify transactions. On the other hand, proof-of-stake networks require validators to hold a certain amount of cryptos to participate. The event, which has been delayed multiple times, is now expected to take place on Sept. 19.

For IT specialist Kaj Burchardi, whether ethereum eventually unseats bitcoin as the crypto king is “pretty much irrelevant” since the two don’t directly compete with one another.

“The purpose of why you buy bitcoin, from a mindset perspective, and what you actually want to do with that is fundamentally different than when you use ethereum,” said Burchardi, managing director of BCG Platinion, the IT-focused division of Boston Consulting Group.

“Ethereum ... is not a use case. It’s providing possibilities of implementing really good use cases like NFTs [nonfungible tokens] and banking products on a platform. Bitcoin is a use case.”

Meanwhile, Bitcoin added 6% at $24,507, reaching an almost two-week high, while Binance’s BNB token surged 3% higher at $330.