The Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) price is up 2.9% over the past 24 hours, currently trading for US$2,998 (AU$4,022).
That puts the world's number two token by market cap up 14.3% over the past week.
While it still has a goodly way to go before overtaking its 16 November all-time high of US$4,892, that may happen sooner than you think.
Indeed, according to Kain Warwick, founder of derivatives trading system Synthetix, the Ethereum price not only will surpass its previous high-water mark in 2022, it will go far higher.
The case for the Ethereum price rocketing higher
Warwick was speaking at the Blockchain Australia event this week.
And as the Australian Financial Review reported, he forecasts the Ethereum price will more than triple in 2022, reaching US$10,000.
Warwick's bullish forecast is largely based on the major upgrade underway with the Ethereum blockchain. This will see the crypto shift from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS).
Once complete, the upgrade will eliminate the use of so-called crypto miners in the Ethereum blockchain. Miners are at the root of PoW consensus protocols, used by the likes of Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC), and the energy and financial costs of running the PoW protocols have been soaring.
Moving to PoS is forecast to make Ethereum transactions faster, cheaper, and far more energy efficient.
Gas fees set to plummet
The transaction fees collected by Ethereum miners, called gas fees, reached record highs last year. While fees have since fallen considerably, they're still high enough to discourage widespread mainstream adoption.
But that's expected to change with the scaled-up blockchain network operating under a PoS protocol. Which could put a rocket under the Ethereum price.
According to Warwick (quoted in the AFR):
New people wanting to swap dollars for Ethereum and build on top were finding the fees completely prohibitive. But there has been so much work done on scaling the Ethereum blockchain that there is a really credible case for new entrants where it is viable for them to transact.
