Led by the rise of bitcoin ( BTC ) to a new all-time record, along with much of the broader cryptocurrency market, Ether ( ETH ) continued on Wednesday to raise new all-time highs as the coin's price flirted with the $2,400 range for the first time .
The Ethereum network is expected to undergo an update in the next day or so when the blockchain reaches block number 12,244,000. At the time of publication, the blockchain was at 12,237,070. Based on the current average block time of 14 seconds, the update is expected to land on Thursday around 12:00 p.m. (UTC + 1). The update - dubbed " Berlin " - will make several technical changes, all aimed at making the network more cost-effective.
According to data aggregator CoinMarketCap, the price of Ether peaked at $2397 on multiple exchanges on Wednesday, after rising 10.8% in 24 hours. Ether's growth for the week is 22.4%, while the price of the coin is up 110% this quarter - a number that would have been more noticeable under less explosive circumstances recently in the altcoin market.
The Berlin update will be implemented as a hard fork - an irreversible change to the blockchain protocol. The hard fork is non-contentious, meaning no ideological differences within the community will lead to a new coin - as happened with Ether and Ethereum Classic ( ETC ) in 2016.
Anyone holding Ether in wallets or on exchanges will not be affected by the hard fork, but Ethereum miners and node operators will need to update their software to sync with the latest version of the chain. Data from EtherNodes.org shows that 72% of Ethereum software customers have reached Berlin ready status in anticipation of the hard fork.
Speculations about potential Ether price movements in the short term have ranged from extremely optimistic (and definitely " not crazy ") to conservative and balanced.
