Ethereum surpassed $2,000 early Saturday as interest in its critical Proof-of-Stake update grows.
This week, Ethereum developers established a potential mid-September launch date for "the Merge."
ETH Exceeds $2,000 on the Merge Rally
The Merge transaction is still active.
ETH's weeks-long rally continued into the weekend, breaking $2,000 for the first time since May.
At press time, the number two cryptocurrency is trading just above a key psychological milestone, according to CoinGecko data. Its market value has increased by approximately 16% in the last week.
Following the latest surge, ETH is up more than 100% from its June low, when the broader crypto market plummeted in the aftermath of Three Arrows Capital's collapse.
While several cryptocurrencies have benefited from the market's rebound, ETH has outperformed many assets as anticipation for its historic "Merge" event has grown.
The term "The Merge" refers to the process by which Ethereum's Proof-of-Work execution layer will "merge" with its Proof-of-Stake consensus layer.
At that point, rather than miners, the network will rely on validators staking ETH to verify transactions.
The Ethereum community has overwhelmingly supported "The Merge" because of the changes it will bring, such as a 90% reduction in ETH issuance (because the network will no longer need to pay miners) and a 99.9% reduction in energy consumption.
The so-called "Merge trade" has recently become a popular move among traders looking to capitalize on the excitement surrounding the update.
Along with ETH, many other Ethereum-related tokens have risen in value, including Lido and RocketPool.
Ethereum Classic has also done well because it uses Proof-of-Work, and it may become a hub for miners once they leave Ethereum.
Some Proof-of-Work supporters are even planning to fork Ethereum in order to preserve a new ecosystem for miners, which has the support of people like Justin Sun.
This week, Ethereum extended its Merge rally after Ethereum completed the final test run for the update on the Goerli testnet.
The Ethereum Foundation developers then tentatively agreed that the upgrade would be released when the network reached a Total Terminal Difficulty of 58750000000000000000000
This is presently scheduled to arrive between September 15 and 16.

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