Last Updated on March 17, 2023 by Bitfinsider

Following this week’s market rebound, Ethereum (ETH) has been among the most lucrative assets, outperforming most altcoins like Cardano (ADA), Dogecoin (DOGE), and Solana in terms of market performance. (SOL).

The second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization started the week trading in the $1,588 to $1,800 price range before increasing by about 12% to almost reach the $1,800 price level for the first time since August 2022.

Following this significant price increase, ETH underwent a brief decline that caused its market price to drop to roughly $1,628. ETH soon resumed its bullish path, though, and has been steadily increasing over the past two days.

Data from Coingecko show that Ether is continuing its upward trend, rising 4% in the past day to bring its seven-day total of gains to an outstanding 20.2%.

The upward trend in the price of ETH is significant, particularly in light of the impending Ethereum network upgrade in Shanghai. Ethereum users will be happy to learn that there is now a confirmed timetable for the Shanghai network update in the most recent development on that front.

As of this writing, the price of ETH is $1,744.12 and its daily transaction volume is $11.7 million. The alternative currency also keeps its $208.5 billion market cap and 17.1% market share.

After the Goerli testnet’s effective upgrade in Shanghai on March 14, it was only a matter of time before the Ethereum mainnet did the same. Yesterday’s gathering of Ethereum developers saw the formal selection of a date for the much-anticipated hard fork of the Ethereum network.

In four weeks, on April 12, at precisely 10:27 p.m. UTC, the Shanghai Upgrade will take place, according to a post from well-known Ethereum developer Tim Beiko. The Ethereum community and the wider crypto space are very excited about this news.

The Shanghai Upgrade’s Importance

One of the most eagerly awaited events in the cryptocurrency world for 2023 is the Ethereum Shanghai Upgrade. Like any upgrade, it pledges to bring about a number of exciting new features, such as important advancements in scalability, security, and smart contract functionality.

The Shanghai upgrade’s most noteworthy feature, though, is that it will eventually permit ETH staked to be withdrawn. Approximately 17.5 million ETH tokens, valued $29 billion, are currently staked on the Ethereum network.

Massive withdrawals of these coins may occur after the Shanghai Upgrade, which could cause a sharp increase in the market’s liquid ETH volume.

Since liquid staking protocols account for the majority of the ETH staking market and hold 32% of all staked Ether tokens, there is a lot of speculation about how this possible development will impact their operations.