Ether’s surge to a 19-month high has been fueled by the anticipation of a network upgrade, a recent proposal from Vitalik Buterin and increased DApp use.
Ether (ETH), the native token of the Ethereum network, has risen by 5.5% since Dec. 27, even though it failed to break above the $2,400 resistance. Traders are now questioning what has been driving the price of Ether up and whether these factors remain of importance.
The intraday high of $2,446 on Dec. 28 was last seen over 19 months ago. This increase occurred while the broader cryptocurrency market capitalization remained flat at $1.68 trillion. This suggests that Ether's price could continue its bullish momentum toward $2,500, despite the average transaction fee exceeding $5. While this may not seem excessive, it can be burdensome for most decentralized application (Dapp) users.
One can easily fall for the narratives that competing chains are gaining relevance as critics claim that the Ethereum network has failed due to its limited capacity for scaling and privacy solutions at the base layer level. This negative conversations has been heightened by the recent outperformance of Solana (SOL) and BNB (BNB), which have gained 78% and 44%, respectively, in the past 30 days. As an example, an experienced Solana ecosystem developer, Matty Taylor, posted about this issue on X social network.
