ETH Hits $2,000 After Successful UpgradeBy: The Defiant Team DeFi DailyGM Defiers! ETH hit an 8-month high above $2,000 after the network successfully executed its Shapella upgrade.Crypto markets continued to rally after softening US economic data boosted investors’ hopes for a Fed pause.Meanwhile, Vitalik is looking ahead to Ethereum’s next hard fork, which promises a 10x improvement in scalability.And finally, we have an exclusive report from IOSG Ventures analyzing Ethereum’s liquid staking market.✍️ In today’s newsletter:ETH trades above $2,000 for the first time since August 2022Vitalik says scalability is the next priority for EthereumResearch: Could Lido dominate liquid staking long-term?🙏 Sponsored:What Is Tranchess?Top Ethereum Projects Launch Wallet-Level Solution to Billion-Dollar MEV ProblemFind Yield Enhancing Solutions With Tranchess📈 Markets in last 24 hrs:BTCBitcoin$30,337+1.53%ETHEther$2,009.4+4.80%MKRMaker$749+3.17%SPYS&P500$412.91+1.40%UNIUniswap$6.197+4.22%LDOLido DAO$2.431+4.51%🎬 WATCHWatch our video on the basics of crypto taxes, and our podcast with Harsh Rajat, the founder of Push Protocol and a leading figure in the world of decentralized messaging.MarketsEther Surges Past $2,000 After Successful UpgradeTLDR Ether broke above $2,000 following the successful execution of the Shapella upgrade, while Bitcoin surpassed $30,000 for the first time since June.LDO and RPL, governance tokens of major liquid staking providers, dropped in the week leading up to Shapella but bounced back in the past 24 hours.SO WHAT On the macroeconomic front, markets caught a tailwind after the U.S.Department of Labor reported initial jobless claims at their highest levels since January 2022.
The CPI also came out at 5%, down from its peak of 9.1% in June 2022.The Fed released the minutes from its March meeting, predicting a mild recession later this year, and investors are hoping rising unemployment and cooling inflation will lead to a more accommodative stance from the central bank.THANKING OUR NEWSLETTER SPONSORS| Newsletter continues below |Get paid for doing what’s good for you.
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Buterin praised the progress made by Ethereum’s Layer 2 teams and believes that the network will enter a period of relative stability once its scalability roadmap is complete.SO WHAT Ethereum’s focus on scalability is a critical step for the network to handle increasing user demand and prevent high transaction fees during a surge in activity.The network’s continued development towards sharding could significantly improve the user experience and attract more users to the platform.ResearchPost-Shanghai Upgrade: Could Lido Dominate Liquid Staking Long-Term?TLDR Lido is the current market leader in Ethereum staking with a 30% market share, but faces potential challenges to its dominance.The Shanghai upgrade could lessen Lido’s defensibility layer as the most liquid staked ETH token.
Competitors are also maturing and becoming viable alternatives for stakers that value decentralization.SO WHAT The competition between centralized and non-custodial entities in the ETH staking market has implications for Ethereum’s decentralized ethos.The future of Ethereum staking and its impact on the broader crypto ecosystem will depend on whether decentralized or centralized players ultimately come to dominate the market.🔎 FROM OUR REPORTERSHere’s what Aleks is watching this week👀Uniswap is set to deploy on Polygon zkEVM11 Lido validators had their stake slashed Thursday, and will lose an estimated 12 ETH🌍 ELSEWHERETwitter partners with eToro to let users trade stocks, crypto (CNBC)Early version of Yearn exploited for $11M (Twitter)Mastercard Drops Free NFTs, Launches Web3 Music Accelerator (CoinDesk) Subscribe to the Best DeFi NewsletterJoin 80k+ crypto innovators.
