Bullish? Staked Ethereum is set to be released in March 2023

Ethereum (ETH) developers have announced a possible date when the staked ETH withdrawals will begin after the historic Merge upgrade that transitioned the network to Proof-of-Stake (PoS). 

In this line, the developers are intended to release the Shanghai hard fork in March 2023, the upgrade entailing the EIP 4895 code will enable the withdrawals, CoinDesk reported on December 8. 

The latest development comes barely a month after the network unveiled the handong testnet that resolved any bugs linked to the Shanghai hard fork. The developers have also agreed to implement the EVM Object Format (EOF) in Shanghai. The format refers to a collection of EIPs to upgrade the Ethereum Virtual Machine.

Furthermore, Ethereum will likely undergo another hard fork during the 2023 fall to handle any emerging and significant scaling upgrade. 

Impact of Ethereum upgrades on price 

It is worth noting that Ethereum has sustained development in recent months preceding the transition to the PoS protocol. In this line, the community expects the upgrades to influence ETH’s price positively and potentially usher institutional investors to the network. 

However, the Merge upgrade failed to live up to the expectation, with the upgrade turning into a buy the rumor sell the news event. Indeed, the cryptocurrency began building momentum towards the upgrade but failed to hold the gains weighed down by the general market downturn. 

Despite failing to live up to the Merge upgrade expectations, Ethereum posted better performances than Bitcoin (BTC) in the second half of 2022. Interestingly, Ethereum proponents believe that with continued network upgrades, the second-ranked crypto by market cap would likely flip Bitcoin. 

Furthermore, with new tokens being released into the market, the Shanghai upgrade could mean volatile times for Ethereum. At the same time, the situation could complicate the existing market downturn characterized by the fallout from the FTX crypto exchange collapse. 

Ethereum price analysis 

As things stand, Ethereum is trading at $1,250, unable to make a decisive price movement amid the ongoing consolidation. The asset’s weekly chart indicates a minor rally of about 1.2%. 

Overall, Ethereum has recently traded sideways as bulls attempt to accumulate power for a further move. The asset is currently trading above the $1,200 support level. To hold the position, Ethereum bulls need more action to avoid losing the battle to bears. 

Indeed, if Ethereum loses the support, the move would invalidate the asset’s possible bullish rally. 

In the meantime, Ethereum technical analysis offers mixed signals on the daily gauges. A summary of the gauges on TradingView aligns with the ‘neutral sentiment’ at nine, while moving averages are for ‘sell’ at eight. 

Elsewhere, according to a Finbold report, by factoring in several technical analysis, Ethereum is projected to correct and trade at $915 on Christmas Day 2022. The figure represents a drop of about 20% from the asset price at the time of publishing.

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