Ethereum price (ETH/USD) hovers around $137 on Friday afternoon

The Ethereum price (ETH/USD) has managed to top the $137 mark thanks to a positive Friday morning session.

The second-largest digital currency on the market enjoyed some very positive price action during the opening hours of yesterday’ session, when its price jumped to as high as $138.58, from an opening level of $136.28. However, the rest of the session was market by heavy price fluctuations, which prevented ETH from extending its advance. The coin hit an intraday high of $138.85 in late afternoon trading, but it gave up most of its gains during the final hours of the session, ending the day at $136.75.

Ethereum was able to edge higher in today’s morning session, but it didn’t have enough momentum to sustain a long rally. The coin reached an intraday high of $137.75 in late morning session, but it has since been back on a downward trajectory. At the time of writing, the Ethereum price was hovering around the $137 mark, according to data from digital currency tracker Coinmarketcap.

In other Ethereum-related news, the blockchain protocol yesterday underwent two system-wide upgrades, or hard forks, dubbed Constantinople and St. Petersburg. The forks were executed at block number 7,280,000, which was discovered at 19:57 GMT. Even though not all Ethereum users have adopted the upgrades, it seems that the forks have gone as planned.

The Constantinople fork brings some changes to the protocol, including a reduction of mining rewards to 2 ETH from 3 ETH. The upgrade is also seen as paving the way for an even bigger upgrade called Casper, which is designed to migrate the Ethereum network to from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake consensus mechanism.

Meanwhile, the St. Petersburg fixes a crucial vulnerability in the Constantinople code.

In today’s trading, the Ethereum price stood at $137.15, as of $15:04 GMT. The coin has lost 0.8% in the past 24 hours.