On its 5th anniversary, Ethereum (ETH) is presenting its holders with a solid gift. Just moments ago, the cryptocurrency surged by more than 5%, thus marking a fresh high for the past year.
The second-largest cryptocurrency by means of market capitalization surged over 5% less than an hour ago.
The price reached around $340 on some exchanges.
As seen in the chart above, ETH marked a new 12-month high. Interestingly enough, the move came not so long after it failed to breach $323 on a few attempts, as CryptoPotato reported earlier today. Yet, it appears that bulls managed to win.
At the time of this writing, the price has retraced to $337.
In any case, the next target for Ethereum would be the $350 level, which is also a substantial psychological resistance.
Pinpointing the specific reason for ETH’s pump is a largely speculative endeavor. However, it’s probably safe to assume that the cryptocurrency is finally starting to capitalize on the ongoing DeFi craze.
The total value locked in lending protocols is upwards of $3.88 billion, according to DeFi Pulse, and the field shows no signs of slowing down. Ethereum serves as a foundation upon which a lot of what’s happening in DeFi is built upon, hence driving the demand for ETH higher.
In fact, the price of Ethereum is not the only thing that’s surging. Today, the network tapped milestone highs in other on-chain metrics as well.
The network’s hash rate has reached its highest point in 20 months. Meanwhile, the heavy utilization of the network is also driving up the transaction fees. The higher the fees, the more miners profit, which explains the increasing hash rate.
