Ethereum Staking Activity Stabilizes Following Shanghai Upgrade

The pace of ETH staking movements has settled into a steady rhythm in the week following Ethereum's recent network upgrade. Concurrently, the digital asset's price chart is exhibiting signs of a potentially bullish configuration.

NEW DELHI (Gate.io News) — The Shanghai upgrade, implemented on Ethereum on April 12, introduced the capability for users to withdraw their staked ETH. After an initial flurry of activity, the withdrawal rate has moderated, with cumulative unstaking surpassing 1 million ETH by April 17.

Interestingly, during the same period, over 502,000 ETH tokens have been newly staked, indicating ongoing confidence in the network's staking mechanism.

Understanding Staking Withdrawals

The Shanghai upgrade introduced two withdrawal options for Ethereum stakers: partial and complete. Partial withdrawals allow users to claim accumulated rewards, while complete withdrawals enable the retrieval of the entire 32 ETH stake required for validator status.

To facilitate these withdrawals, validators needed to update their withdrawal credential prefixes from 0x00 to 0x01. At the time of the upgrade, only 40% of validators had made this change. However, by April 18, this figure had risen to 85.3%.

Data analyst Martin Lee suggests that while all validators are expected to eventually make this transition, it primarily indicates an intention to access rewards rather than a mass exodus from the network.

Further supporting this view, on-chain researcher Lookonchain observed that several addresses chose to re-stake their ETH after withdrawal. Among the top 15 withdrawal addresses identified, three opted to recommit their ETH to the network.

ETH Price Analysis

On the market front, Ethereum's price chart is displaying an intriguing formation known as an ascending triangle. This pattern is characterized by a flat upper resistance line and a rising lower support line.

Typically, as these trendlines converge, increased buying pressure can drive the price above the horizontal resistance. While ETH has breached this level, further upward movement is necessary to confirm the breakout.

In an ideal scenario, the potential price target derived from this pattern could see ETH reach $4,557, representing a 117% increase. However, real-world market dynamics suggest this level might not be attained until late 2023 or early 2024.

Currently, ETH is encountering resistance around $2,180, coinciding with a multi-week ascending trendline. Following an unsuccessful attempt to breach this level on April 14, the price has been moving sideways. On April 18, ETH experienced a 3.4% swing, reaching a daily high near $2,124 before retracing.

Should ETH successfully break above the trendline resistance, it could target the $2,360 level. Conversely, if the resistance holds, ETH might retreat to support around $2,010, with a further decline potentially testing the $1,870 level.

As always, traders and investors should conduct their own research and consider multiple factors before making investment decisions in the volatile cryptocurrency market.