The Ethereum price has risen by 2% in the past 24 hours, spiking above the $1,800 resistance level and preparing the ground for further gains in the coming days.
At $1,800, ETH is now up by 7% in a week and by 25% in a fortnight, with the biggest altcoin also having gained by 50% since the beginning of the year.
And with the Shanghai upgrade due on April 12, the ability to withdraw staked ETH is only likely to boost ETH’s price in the medium- and long-term, given that staking will become more attractive to more investors.
Ethereum Price Prediction as Bulls Push ETH Past $1,800 Resistance – Here’s Where ETH is Heading Now
ETH’s chart suggests that the coin is still in the middle of a rally, with its indicators refusing to lose momentum.
Its relative strength index (purple) remains close to 60, after rising from 30 earlier in the month, with it having plenty of room left to rise further before ETH becomes overbought.
Similarly, ETH’s 30-day moving average (red) continues to rise above its 200-day average (blue), showing no sign of stopping just yet.
And given that ETH has broken through the $1,800 resistance level, it could indeed progress to other levels in the coming days.
Yes, the wider market is currently in a mixed mood, with Coinbase facing likely legal action from the SEC and the global financial system remaining under strain, but Ethereum’s fundamentals continue to suggest that the altcoin is due further gains.
This is largely because of the aforementioned Shanghai update, which is already running on the Goerli testnet.
Shanghai will permit the withdrawal of staked ETH (including staking rewards), and while some have claimed that the update will result in a spike in selling pressure, the negative impact of the upgrade will actually be fairly contained.
Why? It’s because withdrawals of staked ETH cannot happen at once, with developers setting daily limits of how many validators can withdraw 32 ETH per day.
This limit is currently set at 1,575 full withdrawals per day, given that the total active validator count is between 458,752 and 524,288.
And because a significant portion of Ethereum validators are actually in the red, many will choose to sit tight on their staked ETH, meaning the market is unlikely to see a deluge of sales.
It’s, therefore tempting to see Shanghai as much more of a positive for ETH than a negative, in that it will take another significant step in Ethereum’s evolution as a proof-of-stake chain.
Importantly, it will de-risk staking for users in that now any prospective staker will know they’ll be able to get their staked ETH, and their rewards, back.
This fact alone is likely to result in ETH seeing increased interest from institutional investors, who may increasingly wish to participate in staking in order to earn a passive income.
Helping to attract further investment is the fact that ETH has become a semi-deflationary token ever since the Merge and EIP 1559, with both upgrades meaning that Ethereum actually destroys more ETH than it issues during periods of high traffic.
This tendency is likely to increase over time, as Ethereum attracts more usage and adoption, pushing ETH’s price up higher.
It’s for this reason that it’s not unrealistic to expect ETH to pass $2,000 in the next few months, potentially regaining a level around $3,000 by the end of the year.
This optimism is also supported by the adoption news Ethereum continues to enjoy, with Coinbase announcing last month that it will be launching its own layer-two sidechain for Ethereum.
This is significant because it means that Coinbase will be working actively to attract more users to not only its new layer-two network, but to the underlying Ethereum chain.
So over time, Ethereum is likely to cement its position as the biggest layer-one blockchain by total value locked in, with the ETH price continuing to benefit as a result.
This article was originally published by CryptoNews.
