Ethereum hard fork upgrade is live, trades remain flat

The long-awaited Ethereum Shanghai upgrade was successfully implemented at 22:42 UTC. This completed the transition of the blockchain to proof-of-stake by enabling withdrawal requests.

The Ethereum Shanghai hard fork, also known as the Shapella Upgrade, was triggered at 22:27 UTC and completed at 22:42 UTC. Right after the upgrade, some 285 withdrawals of staked 5,413 ETH worth $10 million finally have been proceeded with, according to beaconcha.in.

In September 2022, Ethereum underwent a significant upgrade known as “The Merge,” which changed the way ETH is created and transactions are verified. The upgrade moved Ethereum to a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism, where users stake ETH to validate on-chain transactions and earn rewards. Since the launch of ETH staking in 2020, users have deposited more than $34.56 billion of ETH.

Despite The Merge, users haven’t been able to access their funds. With the Shanghai hard fork, these funds can now be withdrawn.

The second largest cryptocurrency by market cap, ETH, remained flat on the news, rising 2.66% in the last 24 hours. According to CoinMarketCap, it’s now trading at $1,925 despite the Shapella upgrade.

Some crypto experts believed that the new ETH supply would lead to strong selling pressure, while others expected a psychological battle among traders in which excessive short trading would be punished.

Brent Xu, CEO of cross-chain DeFi protocol Ume wrote to CoinDesk:

The momentum is just too powerful. Right now, there are many institutions holding ETH and LSTs. Retail basically isn’t in the picture, and retail would be the ones who would dump at this moment. But the institutions won’t really be impacted by this upgrade because their investing time horizons are longer term.