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The successful launch of Shapella on the Ethereum network has driven up the value of Ether and other alternative cryptocurrencies, intensifying the buzz surrounding the "alt season" storyline on Crypto Twitter.
In the past 24 hours, Ether has surged by over 10%, reaching a 11-month high of over $2,120 during Asian trading hours. This notable increase is attributed to Thursday's Shapella upgrade, which marked a significant advancement for the Ethereum network. With the new upgrade, users are now able to stake and unstake tokens from the network at their discretion, ultimately improving the overall prospects of the Ethereum ecosystem.
The governance tokens of liquid staking protocols, namely Lido's LDO and Rocket Pool's RPL, experienced significant gains, with both surging as much as 14%. These protocols collectively lock billions of dollars to provide yields on Ether staking for users, who are able to stake any amount of Ether to earn rewards while still retaining liquidity of their locked coins through derivative tokens. This is accomplished without the need to put up the required 32 Ether to run a validator node.
Lido's staked Ether tokens (STETH) have risen to the top ten cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, currently valued at $12 billion, which represents the amount of Ether locked within the protocol.
According to Valerie Tetu, Head of Strategy at Lido Finance, the Shappella upgrade is believed to have bolstered user confidence in the platform.
“Staking withdrawals enabled by the Shanghai upgrade represent a significant milestone in the development of the Ethereum blockchain,” Tetu said over email. “Withdrawals will allow stakers to participate in securing the network with more confidence while increasing the capital efficiency of the tokens they decide to allocate.”
“With regards to the staking ecosystem, the ability for users to withdraw their tokens will support healthy competition across platforms and providers, as well as a broader diversity of staking offerings and architectures to flourish,” she added.
In the meantime, Dogecoin (DOGE) has experienced gains for the second consecutive day. The surge is largely attributed to the announcement from trading service eToro, stating that it would enable direct crypto trading through Twitter, which is owned by none other than Elon Musk. This has led to speculation that DOGE may eventually be adopted for use as payments on the social media platform.
Elon Musk has been a vocal advocate of Dogecoin and has consistently shown his support for the network's development through various public statements in the past.
In other news, Cardano (ADA) experienced a nearly 9% surge, driven by fundamental growth in the Cardano network, including increased support for decentralized application (dApp) development.
Several market analysts anticipate that the current rally will persist over the coming weeks.
“Many traders had been waiting for the end of the upgrade to start long position accumulation therefore neutral news about the US inflation plus deferred demand pushed ETH price up today,” Ilya Volkov, co-founder of crypto services platform YouHodler, told CoinDesk in an email.
“ETH stays in the same upward trend channel from the beginning of the year. If the macro situation does not get worse, unlikely the current trend will be changed near future despite the fact that selling pressure is going to increase following weeks due to unlocking liquidity,” Volkov added.
Source Coindesk
