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The Shanghai Shapella upgrade is one of the most significant Ethereum developments since the merge last year. The April 12 upgrade was just one step closer to Ethereum becoming more scalable after switching to a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) network last year. The long-awaited update will pave the way for new features such as Ether unstaking.

In a live stream following the hard fork, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin stated that Ethereums developers will now prioritize delivering significant scalability improvements to the network. But what about Polygon (MATIC) and other Ethereum Layer-2 scaling networks? With this question in mind, investors have begun to exercise caution when investing in Polygon, as evidenced by the tokens price drop. Analysts believe Polygon (MATIC) will suffer in the coming days.

Polygon (MATIC) was specifically designed as a Layer 2 (L2) network to address Ethereums scalability issues. However, Polygon is threatened by Ethereums transition to a PoS network and the recent move to allow unstaking, paving the way for scalability. Skeptical investors have been moving their funds away from the Polygon (MATIC), fearing further fall.

Polygon fell by more than 5% in the week leading up to the Shapella upgrade, as investors continued to take bearish positions. Santiment, a blockchain data analytics company, reports that over the past week, Polygons transactions worth $100,000 or more have decreased by more than 50%. A drop in whale activity indicates that investors are hesitant to make risky bets on the network. DeFi activity related to Polygon (MATIC) has also decreased significantly in recent weeks. This is according to Glassnode, which has recently reported a significant drop in MATIC tokens locked in smart contracts.

Analysts predict that Polygons price will continue to fall below $1. According to IntoTheBlock, the large number of Polygon investors with a breakeven at the $0.90 range could end the tokens price decline. The breakeven point is the point at which the cost of purchasing a digital asset equals its current market value.

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RenQs presale has raised more than $10 million in the first five stages of its presale campaign. This campaign presale has only two stages left, making now the best time to invest. After the launch, market analysts anticipate a quick price rally to trade between $2.5 and $3. Furthermore, its utility is expected to propel market value and place it among the top 25 coins in terms of market capitalization.

RenQ Finance is a multi-chain non-custodial decentralized exchange (DEX) that aims to disrupt trading by providing users with a direct trading option via the RenQ Wallet app. Through the wallet app, RenQ Finance (RENQ) unites all single DEXes under one platform. This provides users with a larger pool of liquidity, allowing for a more profitable trading experience.

RenQ Finance (RENQ) has a comprehensive suite of DeFi products and services to address interoperability and DeFis liquidity issues. These include a cryptocurrency data aggregator, perpetual futures, a vault, a lending protocol, a DeFi and NFT Launchpad, and various forums. These tools work together to provide users with an enjoyable and seamless DeFi experience.

RenQ Finance (RENQ) has a thriving development team working tirelessly to ensure that the new star remains a DeFi sensation. RenQ Finance (RENQ) intends to launch its mainnet in the first quarter of 2024. The platform also aims to introduce additional DeFi services, such as a desktop wallet plugin and a mobile wallet app, for a more streamlined user experience. RenQs innovative tools and unwavering commitment to disrupting DeFi position it well to become a market leader.

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Disclaimer:This is a paid release. The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the content provider and do not necessarily represent those of NewsBTC. NewsBTC does not guarantee the accuracy or timeliness of information available in such content. Do your research and invest at your own risk.

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Polygon (MATIC) will suffer post Ethereum's Shapella Upgrade ... - NewsBTC

Analysts differ on the amount of ether (ETH) selling pressure that could result from the Ethereum blockchains Shanghai upgrade, scheduled for later Wednesday. The Shanghai upgrade (aka Shapella), will enable validators to withdraw staked ether and rewards that have been locked up.

JPMorgan (JPM) says ether will likely face some selling pressure from the upgrade as more than one million ether staking rewards become instantly available this week.

If you add potential additional selling from staked ether balances that belong to troubled entities, then the selling pressure may be larger in the coming weeks, analysts led by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou wrote.

The bank says it expects ether to underperform bitcoin (BTC) over the next few weeks.

Bank of America (BAC), meanwhile, doesnt expect the Shanghai liquidity event to directly drive ether selling pressure, but it does expect increased volatility around the event due to lower liquidity, exchange inflows, derivatives activity and price action related to the previous upgrade, the Merge.

Coinbase (COIN) says that a sell-off in ether on the back of this event should be relatively limited.

Selling directly from this source may amount to only about 1% to 2% of total average daily ether trading volumes, and Coinbase says its biased towards the lower end of that range.

ETH performance around the Shanghai Fork will be less dependent on technicals and more contingent on what risk is doing at the time. If the market sees risk assets selling off, investors may decide to unstake and sell ether just to de-risk, while institutions may not step in as aggressively on the buy side, analysts David Duong and Brian Cubellis wrote.

At the time of publication ether was trading 2.5% lower at around $1870.

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Here Is What Institutions Are Saying About Ethereum's Shanghai Upgrade - CoinDesk

Going by the numbers, it seems like many ether (ETH) stakers have decided to hold onto their coins. Although several analysts predicted the just-completed Ethereum Shanghai hard fork (along with the separate Capella upgrade, together known as Shapella) would be a sell-the-news moment, ETH has actually climbed to eight-month highs. The second-largest crypto by market capitalization was trading above $2,000 for the first time since last summer, after gaining ~3% during trading hours in Asia.

What this says about the viability of Ethereum, and the outlook for the price of ETH, is an open question. Shanghai, the backwards-compatible hard fork, unlocked the ability for Ethereum stakers to withdraw tokens they pledged to the Ethereum deposit contract used to validate the proof-of-stake network as well as the token payments they received for doing so. Many stakers initially pledged 32 ETH to become validators in 2020, and havent really had access to their coins since.

This article is excerpted fromThe Node, CoinDesk's daily roundup of the most pivotal stories in blockchain and crypto news. You can subscribe to get the fullnewsletter here.

So the 18 million-plus ETH currently staked (worth about $33 billion) has not led to a torrent of sales. Loyal CoinDesk readers likely knew the selling pressure on ETH was overstated. As Amphibian Capital CEO James Hodges wrote on Monday, the vast majority of ETH validators were in the red leading up to the event, making it unlikely theyd cash out at a loss. Now that crypto prices are rising, led in particular by bitcoin, which broke the important $30,000 psychological threshold this week, fortunes may reverse.

Whats most interesting for many is not how ETH tokens trade, but their synthetic counterparts known as liquid staking derivatives. These LSDs, as theyre often called (not to be confused with the entheogen) are essentially bearer instruments for staked ETH that allow users to trade an ETH proxy while still earning staking rewards. The biggest offerings from Lido, Rocket Pool, Frax and Stakewise all hit the market relatively recently. The question post-Shanghai is what role these assets will play.

LSDs still have tremendous value by allowing users to essentially double their holdings, for a fee. Put up ETH in a non-custodial platform and its still yours, along with a shiny new stETH or rETH or Coinbases cbETH. This makes these assets critical for creating and maintaining ETH liquidity (as well as part of the validation process). However, actual ETH has generally traded above the price of particular LSDs, in a similar way that you often see price discrepancy between a managed investment trust and its underlying assets (due to increased risk and fees).

The Shanghai update shows that Ethereum developers are continuing to successfully build out a network in real-time. Basic infrastructure is still being built on the main network, leaving opportunities for free-market alternatives to spring up in the wake. Initially allowing ETH stakers to participate in decentralized finance (DeFi), the total value locked in LSDs actually surpassed decentralized lending last month. The whole pie seems to be growing, which is good news.

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Why Didnt You Sell the News of Ethereums Shanghai Upgrade? - CoinDesk

'Coin Stories' podcast host Natalie Brunell joined The Big Money Show to discuss cryptocurrency as the price of bitcoin exceeds $30,000 for the first time since June of 2022.

Cryptocurrency investors are facing delays to withdraw funds deposited on the Ethereum blockchain after its major software upgrade, highlighting persistent headaches for Ethereum which aims to have the technology widely used for instant payments.

The software upgrade, known as "Shapella," was set to unlock more than $30 billion worth of ether, the second-biggest cryptocurrency, which investors had deposited on the Ethereum blockchain in return for interest.

Until Wednesday's upgrade, investors could not withdraw funds they had deposited via this method, known as "staking," on the Ethereum blockchain.

Ethereum faces withdrawal shortcomings, exposing potential weaknesses. (iStock / iStock)

As of Thursday, ether worth around $1.4 billion was stuck in a withdrawal queue, blockchain data firm Nansen said.

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The delays are an example of the limits in the transactions that Ethereum can process, highlighting its potential shortcomings as it strives to become a widely-used financial infrastructure.

The Ethereum Foundation, a body that speaks for the network, did not immediately comment.

The delays are due to limits in the amount of transactions the blockchain can process, Nansen analyst Martin Lee told Reuters via email. It can process approximately 1,800 validator withdrawals, or 57,600 ether worth of exits per day, he said - that's approximately $115 million.

Smartphone with displayed Binance logo and representation of cryptocurrencies are placed on keyboard in this illustration taken. (Reuters/Dado Ruvic/Illustration / Reuters Photos)

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The limits on validator withdrawals were in place for security reasons, Lee said.

"In an extreme scenario, if theres no limits, and a large majority of validators exit, the Ethereum network would be vulnerable to attacks and bad actors," he said.

Ethereum has grown popular for offshoots of the crypto market such as so-called decentralised finance or NFTs, but it has yet to become used in mainstream payments, finance or commerce.

Photo illustration of Bitfinex cryptocurrency exchange website. (Reuters/Dado Ruvic/Illustration / Reuters Photos)

The major Binance exchange said users would be able to withdraw their ether from its staking product from April 19, and that it may take "15 days to several weeks" to process these transactions.

"Due to the processing limitations on the Ethereum network, Binance will set a daily ETH redemption quota for each Binance user," Binance said on its website.

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Nansen's Lee said the backlog will likely take weeks to clear, after which depending on what the average daily "unstaking" amount is, it would take just hours or a couple of days.

Pastel Network co-founder and Innovating Capital General Partner Anthony Georgiades discusses his outlook for bitcoin and the failure of FTX.

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Crypto investors face delays in withdrawing funds after Ethereum upgrade - Fox Business

Ethereum (ETH 4.96%) is up 60% for the year, and all eyes are now on the blockchain's pending Shanghai upgrade. This is the first major upgrade to Ethereum since The Merge, and has been highly anticipated for months.

The Ethereum bulls, of course, think that Shanghai will be a huge win for Ethereum, and are getting ready for a huge rally. Some are even predicting a $10,000 price for Ethereum by 2025. But just how realistic is that target? After all, the record high for Ethereum ($4,891.70) is less than half that level.

Both bulls and bears agree that the Shanghai upgrade is pivotal to what happens next with Ethereum.The upgrade is directly related to Ethereum's transformation from a proof-of-work blockchain into a proof-of-stake blockchain last year. As soon as that change took place, Ethereum had to consider the implications for staking, which is the process of locking up crypto on the blockchain in exchange for rewards.

Currently, the lockup period for Ethereum is indefinite. You can stake your Ethereum and earn rewards, but you cannot unlock it and take it out of the blockchain. The primary purpose of Shanghai is to make it possible to withdraw this staked Ethereum, some of which has been locked up since December 2020.

Image source: Getty Images.

According to the Ethereum bulls, the Shanghai upgrade is going to result in huge new flows of capital coming into the blockchain. That's because Shanghai will de-risk staking on the blockchain and pave the way for more individual investors to get involved. If you look at how much Ethereum has been staked, it is only about 16% of the crypto's entire market cap, compared to levels of 60% to 70% found on other blockchains. So it does make sense that the Ethereum staking ratio will one day align with the percentages found on other proof-of-stake blockchains because investors no longer will face an indeterminate lockup.

However, that's over the long term. In the short term, the upgrade could spur a huge retreat from Ethereum as investor who have been locked up take flight. This could lead to a huge price dump. Nearly 1 million Ethereum tokens will be available for immediate unstaking in April, and this means that nearly $2 billion worth of Ethereum could be dumped on the market. That doesn't even take into account what happens to the other 18 million Ethereum tokens (worth an aggregate of $36 billion) that have been staked.

What many investors don't realize is that Ethereum's digital transformation is really only halfway to completion. It did not end with The Merge. Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, originally promised 100,000 transactions per second. And he also promised that Ethereum gas, or user, fees would decline markedly after The Merge, making the blockchain much more attractive. But what's the reality? Ethereum still has a transaction processing speed of less than 50 transactions per second, which is glacially slow. And gas fees are not much improved, either.

So, it could take until 2025 before Ethereum reaches higher functionality. In November 2022, Buterin published an updated roadmap, and the future development of the blockchain consists of at least five more stages. Given how long it took to implement The Merge, and how many delays there were along the way, this could be a very long process.

Ultimately, these delays and accompanying uncertainty could have a negative impact on the price of Ethereum. Investors are going to get tired of waiting, and when people finally realize that Ethereum still relies heavily on Layer 2 scaling solutions by other cryptos even after The Merge, there could be a move to embrace other blockchain solutions that don't come with Ethereum's legacy proof-of-work problems.

That said, I'm still bullish on Ethereum for the long haul. But not so much in the short term. It will take time to deal with the ramifications of Shanghai, especially if there is a short-term price dump. Any price volatility could panic investors if it lasts too long. And it will take time to push through all the really big blockchain innovations that are the keys to Ethereum ultimately boosting its transaction processing rate and lowering its transaction fees.

A more realistic price target, in my opinion, is $3,000. Ethereum last hit this price a year ago in April 2022. Based on today's prices, that represents a gain of more than 50%. If and when Ethereum ever hits that target, that's when investors can have a discussion about a $10,000 price target.

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Just How Realistic Is an Ethereum Price Target of $10,000? - The Motley Fool