Ethereum continued to soar towards the weekend, surging past $2,000 for the first time in over 10 months following the completion of the much-anticipated Shanghai upgrade.
At press time, Ether was trading at $2,112, up over 10% in the past 24 hours. Year-to-date, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization has recovered by roughly 75% since the beginning of the year.
In a frenzy of buying activity following the news of the Shanghai upgrade, Bitcoin also surged past the $30,800 mark during the Asian session Friday as investors bought up the asset in the hope it will surge along. Nevertheless, the world’s most popular cryptocurrency had already been on a tear since January, recovering by over 80% since Jan 1.
The surge in the price of Bitcoin and Ether has also positively impacted other cryptocurrencies. (XRP), Cardano (ADA), Dogecoin (DOGE) and Solana (SOL) have all seen significant gains in the past few days, indicating that investors are increasingly bullish on the future of the cryptocurrency industry.
Shanghai Upgrade Proves Bullish For Cryptos
The recently concluded Shanghai upgrade has no doubt proven to be bullish for Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies. For the first time in 2023, ether options trading volume surpassed bitcoin in the past 24 hours, with various on-chain analytics tools showing massive capital flows from BTC to ETH.
Shanghai, the largest Ethereum blockchain upgrade since the Merge officially opened withdrawals of over 18M ether that the network’s validators had staked since December 2020 to boost network security in return for rewards.
“The Shanghai upgrade is, possibly, a bullish outcome for the markets and altcoins. Altcoins tend to wait for ETH before they want to start moving upwards, they need confidence (including the investors). Instead of a bearish outcome, the event is a bullish outcome,” said Michaël van de Poppe, CEO & Founder of crypto trading firm Eight Global.
According to the pundit, the fire started by Shanghai could propel Bitcoin and Ether higher this quarter. “Generally, I think we’re going to have fun this quarter. Bitcoin can continue the run towards $40-50K, Ethereum to $2,800-3,000,” he tweeted.
According to a recent report by Crypto.com, Shanghai’s Ether unlock could also spur liquid staking for protocols such as Lido Finance and Rocket Pools making Ethereum even more attractive due to attractive staking rewards.
“Liquid staking is undoubtedly one of the strongest narratives defining the industry today, and the growth of the liquid staking market will only be accelerated by the Shanghai Upgrade on the Ethereum network,” the exchange said.
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