• Ethereum traded above $2,000 for the first time since May 2022 after the successful Shappella upgrade.
• Liquid staking tokens have risen by roughly 3% in the last 24 hours and 8 million ETH tokens are staked across top liquid staking protocols.
• Coinglass data showed that ETH’s positive performance liquidated almost $40 million in short positions within the last 24 hours.
Ethereum Reaches Milestone Price
Ethereum rose more than 6% in the last 24 hours to trade as high as $2,007, marking a new milestone since trading above $2K for the first time since May 2022 after a successful upgrade. Meanwhile, Bitcoin only rose by less than 1%.
Liquid Staking Tokens Rally
Liquid staking tokens gained about 3% in value during this period. Except for Rocket Pool (RPL), which only had minor fluctuations, other cryptocurrencies such as StakeWise (SWISE) and Frax Share’s FXS rose by 6.62% and 3%, respectively. The total value of assets locked (TVL) on these top liquid staking protocols also increased by an average of 4%, with over 8 million ETH tokens — worth $16.03 billion — being currently staked across them.
ETH’s Positive Performance Liquidates Short Positions
Coinglass data showed that Ethereum’s positive performance liquidated almost $40 million in short positions within the last 24 hours, which speaks to its strong buying sentiment despite some analysts predicting that it would place selling pressure on ETH prior to its network update due to validators being able to withdraw their staked ETH after it was completed.
The Success of The Shappela Upgrade
The success of the Shappela upgrade mostly influenced ETH’s positive price movement and enabled validators to withdraw their staked ETH from the network update; however, this did not turn out to be a negative factor for Ether as Token Unlocks data shows that validators had withdrawn over 130,000 Ethereum at press time with roughly $1.8 billion worth of ETH pending withdrawals.
Conclusion
Overall, Ethereum has seen strong bullish momentum following its successful Shappela network update that enabled validators to withdraw their staked ETH while also seeing gains in liquidity token values and liquidating short positions due to its positive price performance over recent days..