What happened
There was more excitement in the world of Ethereum (ETH -0.45%) today as a long-awaited upgrade moved a little closer. The value of Ethereum jumped as much as 4.9% in the last 24 hours and as of 3:10 p.m. ET the cryptocurrency was up 3.2% and hovering over the $4,000 mark.
So what
Ethereum opened the Kintsugi testnet to the public on Monday and that has made investors more bullish on this cryptocurrency. Kintsugi is the testnet that runs on proof of stake rather than proof of work, which should bring with it lower transaction costs and a faster network overall.
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There's no question that Ethereum has the largest and most valuable ecosystem of smart contracts and non-fungible tokens today, but that could be under threat from lower-cost cryptocurrencies if they can gain scale. To thwart that threat, Ethereum is upgrading to Ethereum 2.0 proof of work and this is one of the biggest steps in that process.
Now what
This is an extremely bullish move for Ethereum, but we still don't know when the Ethereum 2.0 upgrade will go live. Given how quickly other cryptocurrencies are gaining momentum and how expensive transactions on Ethereum have gotten (sometimes exceeding $100 apiece), this is a much needed upgrade. But the move in Ethereum's value could easily be given back in the next few days, so take a long-term view of this cryptocurrency and keep an eye on when Ethereum 2.0 is going to hit the market.
