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Ether stakers have withdrawn $1.21 billion worth of ETH from Ethereum staking contracts since the Shapella upgrade. Ethereum's Ether (ETH) token has entered a sharp price recovery a week after hitting a six-month low versus Bitcoin (BTC).  On April 18, the widely-tracked ETH/BTC pair reached 0.0709 BTC, up about 15% from its local bottom of 0.0602 BTC six days ago. Now, the pair eyes a run-up toward 0.075 BTC by June, based on the fractal setup previously discussed here. ETH/BTC daily price chart. Source: TradingView Ethereum's Shapella FOMO Interestingly, Ether's local bottom formation versus Bitcoin occurred on the day of Ethereum's long-awaited Shapella upgrade. The hard fork enables Ether stakers to withdraw their rewards — around 1.1 billion ETH — from Ethereum's proof-of-stake smart contract. This update may have boosted ETH's appeal compared to BTC, beating anticipations that a freshly unlocked Ether supply would increase sell-pressure. Stakers have wi...

Most altcoins posted a below-par performance in March, but XRP, XLM, CFX, XDC and MASK defied the trend by posting double-digit gains. Bitcoin’s dominance over the crypto market, which represents its share of market capitalization relative to the total cryptocurrency market capitalization, rose steeply from around 44% to highs of 48% in March.  While Bitcoin’s price increased by 22.7% during the month, most altcoins yielded subpar or negative returns. However, there were some outliers which showed a second month of positive momentum. Take for example, XRP, which saw steady positive momentum as investors expect a positive outcome in its U.S. court case against the SEC. Tokens with highest 30-day returns in the top 100 by market capitalization. Source: CoinMarketCap Conflux Network Conflux Network continued its positive run from February, nearly doubling its price in March. The project’s team continued to strengthen its partnerships in China by adding XCMD, the world’s third-largest con...

ETH’s correlation with tech stocks, its increasing total value locked and its deflationary token economics all suggest that the path to $2,000 is programmed. Ether's price (ETH) reached $1,400 on March 10, which proved to be a bargain as the cryptocurrency rallied 27.1% until March 21, at the time of writing. However, the three reasons that supported the price gain, including correlation with tech stocks, its increasing total value locked and its deflationary token economics, all suggest that the path to $2,000 is set in stone.  There are numerous explanations for Ether's 19.4% decline over the past six months. The Shanghai hard fork upgrade was delayed from March to early April and after Shanghai, Ethereum's roadmap includes the "Surge," "Verge," "Purge," and "Splurge" updates. In reality, the longer these intermediate steps to achieve scalability take, the greater the likelihood that competing networks will demonstrate efficacy an...

Bitcoin and select altcoins are showing signs of a possible recovery in the near term but higher levels may continue to attract sellers. As the year comes to an end, investors will be keenly watching for a Santa Claus rally on Wall Street as many believe that if the rally does not happen, the next year may either remain flat or turn negative.  Jurrien Timmer, director of global macro at asset management giant Fidelity Investments, tweeted on Dec. 19 that the United States equities Markets may remain “sideways” and choppy in 2023. He expects “one or more retests of the 2022 low, but not necessarily much worse than that.” Daily cryptocurrency market performance. Source: Coin360 The cryptocurrency market has been largely correlated with the S&P 500 in 2022. Unless both markets decouple, the sideways or negative action in the equities markets may not bode well for the cryptocurrency market. Analysts remain divided on the future price action for Bitcoin (BTC). While some expect a recov...