The spotlight has shifted from Bitcoin (BTC) to Ethereum (ETH) as it continues to recover this year. The second-largest cryptocurrency surged more than 13% this week, surpassing larger rival Bitcoin’s 10% increase during the same period.
The excitement over Ether was sparked by the most recent software upgrade of the token’s underlying Ethereum blockchain. The largest altcoin passed the $2,100 mark with the Ethereum “Shanghai Upgrade.”
Ethereum Back Track to 2K
At the time of writing ETH traded at $2,111 with a 24-hour trading volume of $15.2 billion, increased about 18%, and has a market cap of $253 billion, which climbed around 6% from the previous day. Also, Ethereum price soared over 6.20% in a day and 18% in the last 14 days. And the Bitcoin rival price skyrocketed 77% year to date.
Ethereum (ETH) Price Chart ( Source: CoinMarketCap)
Further, investors are waiting in line to withdraw Ether tokens and they pledged to help operate Ethereum in exchange for rewards, “staking.” According to Nansen data, just a small portion of the more than 17 million Ether coins that have been locked up for staking, or about 868,728 ETH, is poised to make a full flee.
It remains to be unseen what effect enabling the withdrawal of staking rewards and initial capital will have. Moreover, the king of the global crypto market leader is up about 2℅ in the last 24 hours and 10℅ in a week.
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