Summary:
- Ethereum’s native asset ETH traded around $1900 on Tuesday hours ahead of the Shapella update that developers promise will unlock staked Ether.
- The update scheduled for April 12 at 11 pm UTC is Ethereum’s most important technological upgrade since the Merge.
- Bitcoin rose above $30,000 for the first time since June 2022, pushing MicroStrategy’s BTC bet into profits.
ETH, crypto’s second-largest token and the biggest altcoin in the market eyed $2,000 ahead of the Ethereum upgrade that developers say will unlock over 16 million staked ETH (stETH) accumulated in a smart contract since December 2020.
The token traded around $1,900, data from CoinMarketCap showed on Tuesday. Should ETH break above the $2K level, it would be the first time Ethereum’s native coin saw such prices since August 2022. ETH nosedived along with the broader crypto market following the failures of digital asset business giants like Terra and Three Arrows Capital to name a few.
Ethereum’s latest update dubbed Shapella, an acronym for Shanghai-Capella, is expected to enable withdrawals for staked ETH.
Core developers like Tim Beiko confirmed that Shapella will ship to ETH’s mainnet on April 12 months after the Merge transitioned the network from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake. As previously reported, Shapella will go live at epoch 194048 by 11 pm UTC tomorrow.
The upgrade will allow Ethereum validators and clients who have stock-piled ETH to withdraw their assets, an unlock that some believe could mount selling pressure on Ether’s market price.
Bitcoin Outpaces Ethereum To Push MicroStrategy Into Slim Profit
Bitcoin (BTC) pushed above $30,000 for the first time since June 2022. BTC’s dominance over the crypto market also jumped to 45% after starting at 38% in January. In this case, dominance points to the size of BTC’s market cap relative to crypto’s total market cap which includes every altcoin in the market. It’s the first time BTC dominance reached this high since May 2021.
The surge in price also nudged MicroStrategy‘s Bitcoin bet into green, albeit only a few hundred dollars in profits. MicroStrategy, the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin, has an average purchase price of $29,803 per BTC for its massive 140,000 Bitcoin vault.
