The Ethereum network as a whole has had an eventful couple of months. ETH was one of the top performers of the latest alt season. From being dissed for constantly delaying Ethereum 2.0, the network has come close to rolling it out as the Ethereum Foundation is all set to launch its multi-client testnet that would accelerate the network’s progress towards Ethereum 2.0. 

In more recent news, Ethereum’s Danny Ryan published an update on the Ethereum Blog regarding the details about the progress of the Medalla testnet. In the post, Ryan highlighted that the mandated minimum validator deposits of more than 16K were fulfilled on 31 July 2020. This further suggested that 8 seconds post 1 PM UTC on 4 August 2020 or at 1596546008 Unix time, the genesis of the testnet would occur. The clients part of the genesis were Teku by ConsenSys, Prysm by Prysmatic Labs, Nimbus by Status, Lodestar by ChainSafe Systems, and Lighthouse by Sigma Prime.

Elaborating on the importance of the forthcoming testnet, Ryan wrote,

“The launch of Medalla is a huge milestone in the development of eth2 – if Medalla proves stable, mainnet launch is next – and represents years of hardwork by countless engineers, researchers, and community members. We hope you are as excited as we are :).”

The news of the release of this testnet led to several speculations by the community members that inclined towards the fast release of Ethereum 2.0. While the network prepped for the release of the Medalla testnet, the price of ETH seemed to be moving in its favor.

Over the past few days, the crypto market has exhibited extreme signs of volatility. However, during the time of writing, the entire market had turned green. While altcoins were, as usual, witnessing a significant increase in their price, Bitcoin recorded a dainty price change. While ETH was seen recording an increase in its price of merely 2.7 percent over the last 24-hours, the coin was seen close to $400 once again in just 2 days.

Back on 2 August 2020, the price of the second largest coin breached $400 and went as high as $406.51. However, the coin stayed there for a brief period and plummeted back into the $300 zone. During the time of writing, ETH was trading at $394.38 with a 2.8 percent increase in its price. This further paved the way for speculations of the altcoin hitting $400 very soon.