What happened

Among the most-watched cryptocurrencies, Ethereum (ETH -2.71%) has certainly been more top of mind for investors this week than usual. That's because it just completed its Shanghai hard fork and its Capella upgrade -- a combined change that those in the crypto community also refer to as "Shapella." In the wake of those changes, the token's price had surged by 4.1% over the past 24 hours, as of 12:30 p.m. ET Thursday. 

So what

Ethereum is among the largest ecosystems in the crypto world that are tailored to developers of decentralized applications. Many of these applications, aimed at innovating in the financial sector, depend on the reliability and scalability of Ethereum.

Accordingly, several key upgrades have been ultra-important for investors in the world's second-largest cryptocurrency. Last year, The Merge successfully shifted the Ethereum network from an energy-intensive proof-of-work model to a much more energy-efficient proof-of-stake consensus model.

But these latest two upgrades, Shanghai and Capella, brought a wave of uncertainty for investors. The highly anticipated Shanghai upgrade effectively allows for staked Ethereum to be withdrawn from the network. And Capella makes improvements to the network's consensus mechanism. These upgrades both have great potential to serve as stepping stones for further improvements down the road, but they also came with uncertainty. Any sort of downtime caused by the implementation of Shapella could have triggered a sell-off in Ether, which had been on an impressive run higher prior to these upgrades.

Now what

It turns out the bullish anticipation around these upgrades was warranted. The fact that Ethereum has continued its ascent highlights the capabilities and world-class expertise of the Ethereum developer team. Investors are undoubtedly feeling reassured about Ethereum's continued ability to thrive as the backbone of the global DeFi (decentralized finance) ecosystem.

Additional upgrades down the road could add functionality, which could further widen Ethereum's lead in this sector. Personally, I think Thursday's rally has been rather understated, considering the magnitude of these  upgrades. It will certainly be a fun token to watch from here.