The ‘crypto winter’ is behind us. If Bitcoin has a very good 2023, the second most important cryptocurrency is having a similar path. Ethereum is at a critical moment, as Shapella, its most important update since ‘The Merge’, has been completed these days.
Ethereum is now fully ‘PoS’. All the promises that were presented with ‘The Merge’ are already available from the Shapella update, number 194,048. Ethereum has switched from the ‘Proof of Work’ (PoW) model to the ‘Proof of Stake’ (PoS) model. This implies, among other aspects, that mining as in Bitcoin is left behind and ‘staking’ is allowed.
Waiting for this update since end of 2020. With this update, validators can finally withdraw their locked ETH. The ‘staking’ feature had been activated, but that ‘investment’ has been locked for several years. Not now.
Approximately half of the 562,727 validators are withdrawing some Ethereum, reaping any benefits they may have had during this time and it wasn’t until Shapella that they were able to move it.
Millions of Ethereum unlocked. According to an estimate, some 18.1 million ETH have been unlocked, which is equivalent to more than 34,000 million euros.
Between 2.8 and 3.2 ETH is the average amount that investors are withdrawing. That is, although Shapella already allows you to withdraw your investments, the average is a few Ethereum. Predictably it is an amount similar to the profitability that will have been achieved during this time under the ‘staking’ process.
Ethereum embraces a more decentralized ecosystem. By its nature Ethereum was already decentralized, but the move to ‘Proof of Stake’ is a big step in that direction. With Shapella anyone with a computer can validate transactions.
If before most of the nodes were in external exchanges such as Coinbase or Binance, now the maintenance of their own node is promoted, the so-called ‘cold wallets’.
Paradoxically, the value of Ethereum has risen. Shapella lets investors take their Ethereum with them, which technically should drive the value down. However, this freedom of movement has been well received and Ethereum is up around 10% since the arrival of the major update. Surpassing even the barrier of 2,000 dollars.
The figures will vary depending on the week, but according to point services like Lookonchainthe number of deposits has become higher than the number of withdrawals.
Very consolidated as nº2. The dominance of Bitcoin is evident, but Ethereum has been in second position for several years and far from losing steam, has managed to consolidate as a very valid alternative to the most popular cryptocurrency.
Ethereum has millions of investors and hundreds of blockchain projects that work with its protocol. The arrival of Shapella, the ‘staking’ and the freedom of being able to withdraw the funds wants to promote its use even more.
Beyond the always volatile and unpredictable value that these cryptocurrencies have, little by little their systems are being updated to allow new forms of monetization.
