ETH jumped in price by 10% within the last 24 hours, exceeding $400 per coin. The cryptocurrency is growing steadily over the past month amid upcoming updates and the explosive growth of the DeFi market.

The ETH rate overcame the $400 level, rising 10% per day. Currently, the cryptocurrency is trading at $429, and the capitalization of the second largest cryptocurrency exceeded $48 billion.

Ethereum was already testing $400 about a week ago, when on August 6, its value also temporarily reached $403. But then the cryptocurrency failed to hold that position.

ETH's trading volume increased from $12 billion on August 12, when it traded at $391, to $17.8 billion, when it was $429.84. The last time Ethereum hit this mark was two years ago in August 2018.

The rise in the ETH rate was triggered by two factors. First, there is a sharp rise in interest in the decentralized finance (DeFi) market. Most DeFi services are built on the Ethereum blockchain. Since the beginning of the year, the value of funds blocked in DeFi services jumped from less than $1 billion to almost $3 billion. Demand for DeFi tokens led to a sharp increase in transaction fees on the Ethereum blockchain. The average commission on the Ethereum network updated its all-time high, reaching $7.4. The recommended gas price for transactions almost doubled within the last 24 hours.

The growth of Ethereum is also supported by encouraging reports of upcoming large-scale updates. Ethereum recently launched Medalla, a platform for testing the features of the updated Ethereum 2.0 network. Anyone can join the testnet as a validator for educational purposes and participate in staking, receiving real rewards for voting and adding new blocks, in GöETH tokens.