The crypto markets gained 1.6% over the weekend, bringing global market capitalisation up to US$1.16tn.
Ethereum surged above US$2,000 before edging back to US$1,930 on Monday morning. Buyers piled in on strong signals from founder Vitalik Buterin that September 15 marks the specific date of the hotly anticipated Merge protocol upgrade.
Bitcoin also fared well over the weekend, rising 2% come Monday morning. Meme coin and 12th largest cryptocurrency Shiba Inu is on a roll, surging 7.8% in the past 24 hours, while its dog-themed competitor Dogecoin headed above the US$10bn point with a 1% increase.
Move-to-earn (M2E) NFT project Stepn was another strong riser this morning, adding 3.5% to its now US$624mln market capitalisation.
Decentralised finance (DeFi) projects are looking less bullish, with Curve, Convex Finance, Uniswap, Synthetix and 1inch all down between 5-10%.
Most blockchain networks have also suffered a bit of a dip in market valuation.