It seems traders are expecting big things from ETH ahead of the Ethereum 2.0 launch

According to data from Etherscan, the hash rate in Ethereum has been steadily increasing ahead of the Ethereum 2.0 upgrade. 

The chart shows the hash rate has increased by nearly 30% since the start of 2020 to the current levels of 187,369 GH/s suggesting that miners are becoming more involved.

It has been said the rising hash rate means a more secure network and a lower chance of a 51% attack. https://www.crypto51.app/ who calculate the potential costs of running such attacks on the various blockchain networks estimates that the necessary amount to jeopardize Ethereum is about USD  140K per hour. This makes it now in second place to BTC which would need around USD 430K per hour which has fallen since the halving.

Although this increase it great it is still some way off the all-time highs seen on August 9th 2018, which was just under 300K GH/s. The precise date of the Ethreum 2.0 upgrade is still unknown but it is said to be at some point this year.