Ethereum’s next big upgrade, Shanghai, is on the horizon for March. The Shanghai hard fork will implement further improvement proposals for the Ethereum network as well as enable Ether (ETH) stakers and validators to withdraw their assets from the Beacon Chain. At the time of writing, staked ETH represents approximately 14% of the total supply, or 16 million coins. It equates to over $25 billion at ETH’s current price, a substantial sum that will gradually become liquid following the fork. Some ETH stakers have waited over three years to withdraw their rewards. Does that mean most of them will line …

Online fraudsters are impersonating major cryptocurrency firms like Ripple and Binance by creating fake websites and email imposters pretending to provide staking services for XRP. One such website, ripple.com-staking.tech, includes a blog post titled “XRP staking set to debut January 2023 for retail users,” inviting users to “stake” their XRP with unrealistic returns on investment (ROI), ranging from 12% to 27%. The fake scheme attempts to rush XRP investors’ decision by stating that only the first 10,000 accounts will receive a higher ROI. The fake website provides a well-crafted clone of Ripple’s website, ripple.com, by copying the original layout, and …

The price of Ether (ETH) rallied 16% between Jan. 14 and Jan. 21, peaking at $1,680 before facing a 5.4% rejection. Curiously, the same resistance level resulted in a substantial correction in late August 2022 and again in early November 2022. From one side, traders are relieved that Ether is trading up 35.5% year-to-date, but the repeated corrections that follow retests of the $1,680 resistance may have weakened investors' sentiment. Negative newsflow might have limited Ether investors' appetite after troubled cryptocurrency company Digital Currency Group (DCG) faced more legal issues this week. On Jan. 23, a group of Genesis Capital …

As the proposed date for the Ethereum Shanghai update draws closer, developers have created a testing environment called a “shadow fork,” according to a January 23 tweet thread by Go-Ethereum developer Marius Van Der Wijden. The new testnet appears to have been created in order to test the conditions needed for Ether (ETH) staking withdrawals, which are currently disabled but are intended to become enabled in the update. Withdrawal-Mainnet-Shadow-Fork-1 is finalizing It started out with a few issues because the config wasn't correctly applied on geth (we disallow overriding the mainnet config). The config is applied correctly and all nodes …

Switzerland-based cryptocurrency firm 21Shares is betting on proof-of-stake (PoS) coins by launching a new crypto exchange-traded product (ETP) dedicated to staking. 21Shares on Jan. 18 launched the 21Shares Staking Basket Index ETP, a crypto staking index designed to track up to 10 PoS cryptocurrencies. The ETP immediately starts trading on the local stock exchange BX Swiss under the ticker STAKE. At launch, 21Shares’ STAKE ETP tracks six digital assets, including Binance Coin (BNB), Cardano (ADA), Cosmos (ATOM), Polkadot (DOT), Solana (SOL) and Tezos (XTZ). The index will rebalance on a semi-annual basis in March and September in accordance with market …

MetaMask users are set to have access to Ethereum liquid staking providers Lido and Rocket Pool courtesy of a new integration unveiled by ConsenSys. MetaMask Staking will unlock the ability for users to stake Ether (ETH) through the Lido and Rocket Pool protocols, touting the service to improve the security and decentralization of the Ethereum blockchain. Users will be able to compare reward rates, network control and popularity of different liquid staking providers, providing additional information to inform staking solution choices. The service begins with a public beta through the MetaMask portfolio decentralized application (DApp). Users will be able to …

Ether (ETH) price technicals suggest that 35% gains are in play by March 2022 due to several bullish technical and fundamental factors. Ethereum price rises above two key moving averages On Jan. 8, Ether's price crossed above its 21-week exponential moving average (21-week EMA; the purple wave) and 200-day simple moving average (200-day SMA; the orange wave). Historically, these two moving averages have separated bull and bear markets. When ETH price trades above them, it is considered to be in a bull market, and vice versa. The last time when Ether crossed above its 21-week EMA and 200-day SMA was …

ShibaSwap is a DeFi platform featuring decentralized exchange (DEX) and passive income-generating services like staking, liquidity pools, and yield farming in its ecosystem. Launched in July 2021, ShibaSwap is a fork of SushiSwap, a popular DEX tweaked from Uniswap (UNI), the world's leading DEX by volume. But unlike its rivals, ShibaSwap's core purpose has been mostly about boosting the utility of Shiba Inu tokens. What are Shiba Inu tokens? ShibaSwap uses three main tokens, namel Shiba Inu (SHIB), Doge Killer (LEASH), and Bone (BONE). Let's discuss them in detail as follows. Shiba Inu (SHIB) Shiba Inu (SHIB) is a Dogecoin-inspired …

A secure cryptocurrency wallet is crucial for those investing in the growing cryptocurrency market. Technically, crypto wallets are pieces of software that enable users to send and receive digital currencies, like Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) and Litecoin (LTC). Cryptocurrency wallets are typically used to store multiple coins and tokens at once. However, most wallets only support a limited number of digital currencies. These wallets can come in the form of hardware (much like a flash drive) that can be connected to the internet as needed or digital storage (like a banking app) that can be accessed on a device. To …

The crypto market witnessed the DeFi summer of 2020, where decentralized finance applications like Compound and Uniswap turned Ether (ETH) and Bitcoin (BTC) into yield-bearing assets via yield farming and liquidity mining rewards. The price of Ether nearly doubled to $490 as the total liquidity across DeFi protocols quickly surged to $10 billion. Toward the end of 2020 and early 2021, the COVID-19-induced quantitative easing across global markets was in full effect, causing a mega-bull run that lasted almost a year. During this time, Ether’s price increased nearly ten times to a peak above $4,800. After the euphoric bullish phase …

Liquid staking protocol Lido Finance appears to have benefited most from the Ethereum merge in September, with its total value locked (TVL) now sitting at the top position among other decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols. According to data from DeFiLlama, Lido’s liquid staking protocol now commands $5.9 billion in TVL, compared to MakerDAO's $5.89 billion and AAVE’s $3.7 billion. Lido now has the highest TVL of any DeFi protocol. pic.twitter.com/2xsM3lVGVl — Patrick | Dynamo DeFi (@Dynamo_Patrick) January 1, 2023 According to Lido Finance’s website, as at Jan. 2 had $5.8 billion Ether (ETH) staked. Meanwhile, there was around $23.2 million staked …

The FTX collapse shook up the crypto market, and billions of dollars are currently locked up in the now-defunct crypto exchange. On top of that, FTX was such a big player that the contagion spread to other crypto players, including several trading powerhouses, popular DeFi protocols, and decentralized exchanges. Trust in the crypto ecosystem is at its lowest level. Investors are withdrawing funds from major centralized exchanges while the sales of cold wallets are up. Despite an overall gloomy mood in crypto space, one form of crypto investment remains at the height of popularity, and this is staking. Staking is …