On Wednesday, liquid staking tokens also increase. Bitcoin remains above $28,000.
Attend a one-hour investigation of the developments that will define the Ethereum community in 2023. Recently, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization was trading at $1,913, a 2.2% increase. Earlier in the day, ETH reached $1,941, its greatest level since August of last year.
“Ethereum appears to be breaking out of a flag pattern, which supports near-term upside momentum,” Will Tamplin, senior analyst at technical analysis-based research firm Fairlead Strategies, wrote in an email to CoinDesk.
The Shanghai upgrade, also known as Shapella, will signify the conclusion of Ethereum’s entire transition to a proof-of-stake (PoS) network and will facilitate the withdrawal of ETH that has been staked. It is anticipated to launch on April 12.
Tamplin stated that ETH will likely encounter initial resistance near $2,000, “a psychological threshold that roughly corresponds to the high in August 2022.” He added that its initial support is close to $1,670.
Bitcoin (BTC), the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, traded at approximately $28,280 on Tuesday at the same time. BTC has traded between $27,000 and $28,500 for the majority of the previous three weeks.
In an email discussing crypto options markets, Greg Magadini, director of derivatives at crypto analytics firm Amberdata, noted that ETH’s 25-delta calls have become more expensive than ETH’s 25-delta puts, indicating traders’ preference for upside exposure. Typically, the buyer of calls is optimistic on the market, whereas the buyer of puts is pessimistic. Delta is a risk metric that estimates the price change of a derivative instrument, such as an options contract.
According to data from ultrasound.money, ETH’s annualized inflation rate has remained deflationary, presently standing at -0.32%. This indicates that more ETH is being incinerated than is being created.
Moreover, according to CoinGecko’s data, both Lido DAO’s LDO and Rocket Pool’s RPL, the governance tokens for liquid staking protocols, rose by over 2%.
The native STG token of the cross-chain bridge protocol Stargate Finance increased by more than 14% on Wednesday, while the MASK token of the encrypted messaging protocol Mask Network declined by 4%. The CoinDesk Market Index, which monitors the overall performance of the cryptocurrency market, has increased by 0.6% since yesterday.
For the long haul, if Q2 does indeed prove to be an alt-driven quarter, in a repeat of 2020, then we anticipate the best move would be to exit any strong vol rises from here on both BTC and ETH, a Singapore-based crypto options trading company named QCP Capital said in a Telegram livestream on April 4.
