Ether has surged to a new all time high above $2,230 ahead of the major update dubbed ‘Berlin’ – scheduled to launch on Wednesday April 14th.

Ether’s price $2,231 on Tuesday, setting a new record for the highest dollar valuation the coin ever achieved since its inception. Ethereum’s market capitalisation exceed $250 billion for the first time ever.

Just six month ago, Bitcoin’s market capitalisation was at the same level in October 2020.

Ether’s  1,328% growth over the year continued despite concerns regarding the network’s increasing transaction fees. Due to increased usage, the average Ethereum transaction hit an all-time high of $38.21 in February, per data from Glassnode analytics. This made the network practically unusable for small transactions.

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Still, investors remained hopeful partly due to upcoming network upgrades that are set to radically change the way fees are processed. The “London” upgrade (EIP-1559),  scheduled for this summer, has drawn the ire of Ethereum miners, as it would burn a portion of fees that are normally accrued by mining rig operators (thereby making Ethereum a deflationary asset).

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Meanwhile, Wednesday’s Berlin upgrade is expected to have less of an impact in the short term but will pave the way for the London hard-fork, codifying 4 upgrades to the network. A full technical breakdown for the Berlin update can be found on the release page. Briefly, the changes and trade-offs are aimed to reduce costs for certain transaction types in an effort to stave off overloading the system. A new transaction envelope will also batch multiple transactions into a single transfer.

Naturally, Ether wasn’t the only coin to hit a new all-time high on Tuesday; Bitcoin also hit new heights as the coin surged above $63,000. As it happened, Litecoin led the charge climbing to $270 just 16% below its highest weekly close at $313.

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