Decentral Block Post

The Ethereum Foundation has announced April 12 as the date of deployment of the much-anticipated Shanghai and Capella upgrade, together dubbed as Shapella.

The upgrades will enable withdrawals from Ethereum 2.0 staking contracts. The staking contract was first launched in December 2020. It only accepted one-way deposits of ETH, which will change after the upgrade.

To date, users have deposited over 18 million ETH, worth around $32.5 billion, into the Ethereum staking contract at varying times since December 2020.

Analysts vary on the estimates of ETH sell pressure

Most users opted for liquid staking derivatives on decentralized or centralized exchanges. Because these stakers are already liquid, there will likely be no new reason to sell after the Shapella upgrade.

Decentralized LSD platforms like Lido currently account for around 33.2% of the total ETH deposits on the beacon chain. Out of the rest, around 27.1% is deposited via centralized exchanges like Coinbase, Binance and Kraken. Thus, 60.3% of the staked ETH is deposited via liquid staking mediums.

The Ethereum Foundation has announced April 12 as the date of deployment of the much-anticipated Shanghai and Capella upgrade, together dubbed as Shapella.

The upgrades will enable withdrawals from Ethereum 2.0 staking contracts. The staking contract was first launched in December 2020. It only accepted one-way deposits of ETH, which will change after the upgrade.

To date, users have deposited over 18 million ETH, worth around $32.5 billion, into the Ethereum staking contract at varying times since December 2020.

Analysts vary on the estimates of ETH sell pressure

Most users opted for liquid staking derivatives on decentralized or centralized exchanges. Because these stakers are already liquid, there will likely be no new reason to sell after the Shapella upgrade.

Decentralized LSD platforms like Lido currently account for around 33.2% of the total ETH deposits on the beacon chain. Out of the rest, around 27.1% is deposited via centralized exchanges like Coinbase, Binance and Kraken. Thus, 60.3% of the staked ETH is deposited via liquid staking mediums.

Regulation continues to be the primary concern for Bitcoin bulls, especially after the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) sued Binance for trading and derivatives law violations. The regulator wants Binance to repay the trading profits, revenues, salaries, commissions, loans and fees it received from US citizens, as well as paying civil penalties for the violations.

The increase in Bitcoin’s price was also fueled by a shift in sentiment toward risk assets after the U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said interest rate hikes are no longer the default move to curb inflation. The central bank understood that the current situation will likely “result in tighter credit conditions for households and businesses, which would in turn affect economic outcomes.”

Fixed-income investors earn more when interest rates rise, so buying stocks and commodities becomes less appealing. As a result, by reversing the strategy and adding $339 billion in liabilities in two weeks, the Fed chose to contain the banking crisis, which may cause inflation to spiral out of control.

Given the accretive scenario for risk assets, Bitcoin bulls can profit up to $1.4 billion in Friday's monthly options expiry.

Bitcoin bears were caught completely off-guard

The open interest for the March 31 options expiry is $4.2 billion, but the actual figure will be lower since bears were expecting sub-$26,500 price levels. These traders were caught by surprise as Bitcoin gained 32% between March 12 and March 17.

The United States Federal Reserve has been “too heavy-handed” in taming inflation, says pro-Bitcoin (BTC) Tesla and Twitter CEO Elon Musk.

In a Twitter debate on March 29, Musk directly criticized U.S. macroeconomic policy, including “excess government spending.”

Musk: Fed policy is "serious issue"

Bitcoin and crypto markets remain extremely sensitive to Fed cues on interest rate policy.

Despite inflation gradually coming down, the Fed has continued to hike rates even as banks feel the pressure and several collapse.

For Musk, this is already a case of going too far — with banking crisis contagion spreading to Europe, the U.S. dollar, he agrees, is quickly losing appeal.

In Cointelegraph Markets Pro’s latest VORTECS™ Report, the institutional-grade crypto trading platform displayed how its members could have captured a cumulative 390% gain by following seven trades based on four different advanced data indicators. The report depicts trading alerts generated between March 11 – 18, 2023. 

The potential gains available to Cointelegraph Markets Pro subscribers significantly outperform a simple buy-and-hold strategy during the same period, which would’ve yielded holders of Bitcoin (BTC) a 33% gain.

Cointelegraph Markets Pro uses indicators such as the VORTECS™ Score, NewsQuakes™, Most Active On-Chain and Top 5 Exchange Outflows to provide alerts for subscribers in real time.

The past three reports have included alerts with cumulative returns over 100%, showing that this advanced crypto intelligence platform churns out winning trade opportunities each week.

VORTECS™ Alerts

SingularityNET (AGIX) — 100% gain

On March 12, AGIX was trading at $0.30 when a score of 77 noted bullish historical patterns for the token. Three days later the price jumped to $0.60, an impressive 100% rise! Scores above 80 also flashed on March 14, when it was trading at $0.40. Traders who bought at this price point could have seen a 50% increase.