On Tuesday (April 7), the price of Ether, the world’s most valuable cryptoasset (by maket cap), surged to $175.79, its highest level since March 12, as excitement builds over the expected launch of phase 0 of the Serentiy (ETH 2.0) upgrade in July 2020.

According to data from CryptoCompare, 00:20 UTC on April 7, Ether price reached $175.79, as you can see from the one-month ETH-USD price chart shown below:

ETH-USD One Month Chart on 7 Apr 2020.jpg

At the time of writing (10:05 UTC on April 7), ETH-USD is trading at $174.55:

ETH-USD 24 Hour Chart on 7 Apr 2020.png

This means that so far in 2020 the price of Ether has gone up an impressive 35.40%.

It is reasonable to assume that at least some of the excitement surrounding Ethereum is due to launch of ETH 2.0 (“Serenity”) upgrade, which Ethereum Foundation researchers hope will be launched by July 30.

According to an “Eth 2.0 Research Team AMA” that took place on Reddit on February 6 and involved Ethereum Foundation’s Danny Ryan and Justin Drake, the ETH 2.0 research team is “hoping” for launch by 30 July 2020, and is extremely confident of the launch happening before the end of the year. 

When asked about the expected launch date for phase 0 of ETH 2.0, Drake said:

I'm hoping we can launch by July 30, 2020 (the 5th anniversary of Ethereum 1.0). I think it's unlikely we will launch in Q1 or Q2 2020 especially if we want three clients to be production ready for launch.

He was then asked if he would consider it a failure if the launch of phase 0 did not happen in 2020:

“Yes, it would be a failure. I have 95% confidence we will launch in 2020 :)”

Ryan seemed even more confident about the launch of phase 0 in 2020:

“Phase 0 will certainly launch in 2020. Audits are out and testnets are getting stronger every week. Estimates depend on both the spec and clients getting (relatively) clean bills of health in 3rd party audits. The rest depends engineering concerns and stablizing/optimizing in this last mile of work.

“I don’t see a reality in which Phase 0 does not launch in 2020.”

Damien Brener, founder and CEO of OpenZeppelin, a security audit firm for Ethereum, told Coindesk:

“From a developer standpoint, Ethereum is the most popular blockchain where most of the smart contract and Dapp activity occurs.

“People are realizing that Ethereum’s network effects especially around community and composability (ETH smart contracts interacting with each other) are stronger than they thought, which might lead to increased trust in the platform and thus higher prices.”

As for Jehan Chu, Founder of Hong Kong-based Kenetic Trading Limited, he had this to say:

“Ethereum continues to be the veteran number 2 coin in crypto, and its recent price surge demonstrates traders’ long-term belief in its market position.

“Price aside, the real story is how Ethereum continues to march towards Eth 2.0 and resolving legitimate criticisms around network speed and scalability. In today’s environment, the name of the game is survival, and no protocol and developer community has survived at this high level better than Ethereum.”

Yesterday (April 6), Crypto startup Santiment, which focuses on behavior analytics, said that Ether’s recent price action demonstrates that Ethereum’s daily active addresses are a good metric for predicting future price movements of Ether:

 

Featured Image by “elifxlite” via Pixabay.com