- Ethereum addresses’ private keys could be vulnerable to being leaked after the Shanghai Upgrade.
- Though interest among validators in ETH remained high, gas usage declined.
The crypto community is eagerly anticipating the upcoming Shanghai Upgrade, which has been generating significant interest from the Ethereum [ETH] community. Nevertheless, the growing scrutiny may potentially have adverse effects on ETH’s future.
Read Ethereum’s [ETH] Price Prediction 2023-2024
Not all publicity is good?
On 9 April, Shenyu, the founder of Cobo, a company that offers digital asset custody services, stated that private keys of Ethereum addresses that have staked their ETH might be vulnerable to exposure.
To address this issue, he recommended that centralized staking providers should examine their private key storage method, assess the status of authorized personnel, and establish contingency plans.
Shenyu, the founder of Cobo, said that with the upcoming Shanghai upgrade, more than two years of ETH staking will be withdrawn, and the withdrawal private keys of some staking nodes may have been leaked. Earlier the private keys of thousands of addresses eligible for arbitrum…
— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) April 9, 2023
Shenyu has advised caution in light of a comparable occurrence during the launch of Arbitrum’s [ARB] AirDrop, in which numerous private keys were exposed.
Marching forward
Even though the concerns around the upgrade have been rising, validators on the Ethereum network continued to support it. Staking Rewards’ data showcased that the number of validators on the network grew by 3.08% in the last 30 days.
At press time, there were 563,803 validators on the Ethereum network, who had accumulated $2.34 billion in revenue.
Source: Staking Rewards
Traders have also started to look favorably upon ETH. This could be due to a decrease in Ethereum options’ implied volatility (IV). Based on Greeks Live, the IV for Ethereum has dropped by 8% in the past two weeks. A decline in IV for Ethereum indicates that the market perceives there to be less risk and uncertainty in the price of Ethereum.
One plausible explanation for this reduction in IV could be the boost in market liquidity brought by Easter. However, it is worth mentioning that Ethereum’s IV rarely reaches the same low levels as that of Bitcoin [BTC].
Source: Greeks Live
Realistic or not, here’s ETH’s market cap in BTC’s terms
Even though ETH was witnessing massive interest at press time, the same could not be said about the network itself. Activity on the network fell significantly, which was indicated by the declining gas usage on Ethereum.
The number of NFT trades on the network also dropped during this period, which may have contributed to the falling gas usage and lower activity.
Source: Santiment
