Bitcoin also continued on a more modest trajectory, slowly approaching $31,000. Plus: CoinDesk columnist considers Shapella's immediate and potential long-term implications. The massive unlocking of collateralized ETH predicted by some crypto market observers has not happened. The outlook for ethereum and liquidity-backed derivatives is encouraging as the price of ether rises.
It was a disappointing day for cryptocurrency market watchers, who expected post-Shapella selling pressure to send ether’s price plummeting. The second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization began a steady rally shortly before the U.S. stock market opened, stalling only after ETH climbed above $2,000 for the first time since last August. Ether recently traded above $2,100, up more than 11% in the past 24 hours, as investors opted for the prospect of additional liquidity while reaping the rewards of staking, rather than hoping to take an immediate profit and run away.
"Many traders have been waiting for the end of the upgrade to start accumulating long positions," Ilya Volkov, CEO and co-founder of cryptocurrency trading service provider YouHodler, wrote in an email. Neutral news prolonging demand pushes ETH prices higher.” Volkov pointed out that if the current macroeconomic conditions do not deteriorate, even if the selling pressure increases in the following weeks, it is unlikely that Ethereum will turn from the price gains that other major cryptocurrencies started at the beginning of the year. “Essentially, ETH price remains in the same uptrend channel from the beginning of the year,” he wrote.
Shapella, also known as Ethereum Shanghai Upgrade, is the final step in the Ethereum network’s transition from the Proof-of-Work (PoW) protocol to the more energy-efficient Proof-of-Stake (PoS) protocol. Cryptocurrency market watchers are divided on its impact, with some predicting price volatility while others expect little change.
Bitcoin also continued its more modest momentum, recently approaching $31,000 while up more than 2.5% from Monday. Other major cryptocurrencies were in the green for most of Thursday, with ARB (the token of layer 2 blockchain Arbitrum) surging about 33% recently, and APT (the native cryptographic token of layer 1 blockchain Aptos ) currencies) rose about 12%. The CoinDesk index, which measures the performance of the cryptocurrency market, was up nearly 5% recently. The tech-heavy Nasdaq and S&P 500 closed higher, with technology stocks taking a larger share, rising 2% and 1.3%, respectively. Many cryptocurrency-related stocks continued their recent gains, with miners Marathon Digital and Hut 8 Mining both up around 15%. Recession-fearing investors also continued to show interest in other value-preserving assets, pushing gold above $2,050 an ounce and nearing its all-time high of $2,069 set in 2020.
