What happened

As of 9:46 a.m. ET Tuesday, the price of Ethereum (ETH -0.74%) had risen by nearly 6% over the prior 24 hours as investors looked ahead to the much-anticipated "Merge" and the completion of a series of network upgrades that have been ongoing for years.

So what

The Merge is expected to take place sometime between Sept. 10 and Sept. 20, although Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin wrote on Twitter Monday that it will happen sometime around Sept. 13 and Sept. 15.

When that happens, Ethereum -- the world's second-largest cryptocurrency -- will shift from a network operating on a proof-of-work (PoW) mechanism to a proof-of-stake (PoS) mechanism. The first is the type of protocol that Bitcoin and numerous other cryptocurrencies operate on: They use lots of computing power to rapidly solve the cryptographic puzzles necessary for validating transactions on those blockchains and adding new blocks to them. In return for contributing that energy-intensive computing work, these "miners" can be rewarded with new tokens.

Under PoS, owners of Ether will be able to stake their Ether tokens, which will essentially enter them into a lottery system to have the chance to validate transactions on the network and mine new tokens. The PoS mechanism is a lot more energy-efficient than PoW and is also seen as less risky because it also offers less incentive for developers to attack the network.

On Monday, Buterin also tweeted that what was occurring -- and what could be driving the price of Ether higher -- is the Bellatrix hard fork, which is to be the last major upgrade before the Merge occurs.

Now what

The entire Ethereum community has been awaiting the Merge and the completion of the network upgrades for some time.

The upgrades not only include the shift to a more energy-efficient PoS protocol, but are also expected to significantly increase how many transactions per second the network can process, easing congestion on the network and lowering transaction fees.

Given all of these benefits, I do think the Ethereum network will be much better off, and therefore think the Ether token is a buy.