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| Cryptocurrency Ether is undergoing a major upgrade |
Since the start of the year, the price of Ether, the world's second largest cryptocurrency by market value, has risen by about 350%.
Last week, it briefly crossed $ 600 for the first time since June 2018 and then dropped sharply.
Ethereum investors are now watching the long-awaited upgrade to their Ethereum 2.0 core network, which they believe will be faster and more secure.
The main problem with the Ethereum blockchain is scalability.
In 2017, the popularity of the Ethereum-based game CryptoKitties caused massive traffic congestion on the network, which slowed down the speed of transactions dramatically.
Ethereum 2.0 proponents say the planned upgrade could enable thousands of transactions per second.
At the same time, investors believe that an upgrade could also lead to an increase in Ethereum's acceptance rate and an increase in prices.
The Ethereum blockchain is currently working on a model called "Proof of Work" and the Ethereum blockchain is starting to move to the "Proof of Stake" model.
In order to verify transactions in the new network, depositors have to deposit 32 Ether into a cryptocurrency wallet using a so-called smart contract. This is a contract where the code runs automatically.
Depositors are then rewarded for verifying transactions with Ether. The deposit process enables cryptocurrency investors to earn interest on assets after a certain period of time.
Ethereum seeks to manage decentralized finance (DeFi), which is designed to replicate traditional financial products such as loans without the need for intermediaries such as banks.
Ethereum's ability to support apps could make it the next generation architecture for the decentralized internet.
A parallel blockchain called Beacon was introduced and used to test the new "Proof of Stake" model before moving completely to Ethereum 2.0.
The upgrade also brings with it another important development called (segmentation) which divides the network into many parallel chains that can process transactions to speed up the network.
Crypto experts say: Ethereum 2.0 is designed to help the future Ethereum platform network operate at scale, rapidly process large numbers of transactions, and support applications for millions of users.
It is assumed that these decentralized platforms will be at the same level as the central platforms in the next ten years.