Ether(ETH) bulls seem to be in firm control of the currency’s price as it jumped over 6.5% on Sunday to reach a two-week high of $2,370. The second-largest crypto is due for an update, dubbed the London hard fork, which will be implemented later in July. So far, Ethereum maximalists and investors are optimistic about the update, which contains the highly anticipated EIP 1559 proposal that will make gas prices more predictable on the network.

Ether Breaks Past $2,300 With London Hard Fork Update on the Horizon

Ether(ETH) rose over 6.5% to touch $2,370 on Sunday as per market data. This upward swing pushed the currency’s market capitalization to $274.8 billion, although its weekend trading volumes were consistently low at slightly above $18 million.

In a related development, the Decentralized finance(DeFi) sector, which is largely powered by the Ethereum blockchain, saw overall gains of 9% on Sunday. Coingecko data suggests that the net value of DeFi coins is $67.3 billion at the moment.

With Bitcoin crossing the $35,000 mark, ETH and other altcoins are making significant gains in the market. Ether faced immense pressure from both bullish and bearish traders until last month, which seems to have subsided with ETH’s $230 million options expiry on Friday. 

London Hard Fork Coming to Ethereum Network in July

Ethereum’s most significant update, the London hard fork, launched on the Ropsten Testnet on June 24 and is scheduled for implementation sometime towards the end of July. The highly anticipated upgrade will help Ethereum transition to a proof of stake consensus, making the blockchain more eco-friendly in the process. It will also come with a “scarcity” feature that will reduce the number of ETH coins in circulation. Altogether, the update is expected to uplift Ether’s value in the foreseeable future.

🥳 On a day that saw history be made with #Ethereum surpassing #Bitcoin in daily active addresses for the first time, #altcoins came to play. $KSM, $COMP, and $ZIL were among many projects to make an imprint on the markets, while $BTC ranged around $34.5k. https://t.co/cwjGvrLLeX pic.twitter.com/3AFQ0MHbcT

— Santiment (@santimentfeed) June 29, 2021

Analysts believe that Ethereum will attract more investors leading into the update. This is evidenced by data published by on-chain analytics firm Santiment, which reveals that Ethereum added more than 750,000 active addresses in the last week, surpassing Bitcoin by a sizeable margin.