Ethereum Surges 6% Following the Shanghai Upgrade Amidst Analyst Speculations. The network appears to be soaring following its latest Shanghai upgrade. 🚀
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- Ethereum surges 6% following the Shanghai upgrade.
According to CoinMarketCap data, Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, is currently up by more than 6% in the last 24 hours, with Ether (ETH) selling at roughly $1,986.
This bullishness appears to be raising the aggregated crypto markets, and additional ETH increases are likely to be powered by a decline in Bitcoin’s dominance over the aggregated crypto markets.
The successful execution of the Shanghai Upgrade allowed Ethereum stakers to withdraw their holdings for the first time since staking began in December 2020.
This was the network’s most significant improvement since the merge event in September when Ethereum switched from a proof-of-work to a proof-of-stake consensus process.
To protect the network, the proof-of-stake network employs validators. To receive rewards as a validator, users must first invest 32 Ethereum (over $63k at the time of writing) in the network and operate a node at all times. If the node fails, validators can have the 32 ETH amount reduced as a penalty.
However, before Shanghai, these validators were not permitted to leave the network or collect any accumulated prizes. This sparked widespread speculation among analysts that the option to finally withdraw funds would cause the network to fall into a downward spiral.
According to the data below, several validators have certainly left, taking their staked Ethereum and incentives with them. With an average of 10,000 ETH leaving the staking contract per hour, it’s evident that the total quantity of staked ETH may be decreasing. Although the majority of withdrawals are for rewards only.
However, based on current price performance, it appears that the newly-unlocked Ethereum is not yet being sold on the open market.
The next few hours and days will likely shed light on where ETH and other cryptocurrencies will go in the short term, as the sustainability of this current rise will be critical in deciding whether or not another long-term uptrend is on the horizon.
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Caleb is a technical writer at AlteBlock with over 2 years of experience in covering DeFi-related content such as crypto news, exchange reviews, and guides. He is also a Civil engineering graduate who can be found on-site when not writing an article.
