028 – the dark days of the crypto world have been left behind. If Bitcoin is having a very good 2023, while Ethereum is in a critical moment, as these days Shapella, its most important update since ¨The Merge¨ has been completed.

All the promises that were presented with ‘The Merge‘ are now available since the Shapella update, number 194,048. Ethereum has changed from the ‘Proof of Work’ (PoW) model to ‘Proof of Stake’ (PoS). This implies, among other things, that mining as in Bitcoin is left behind and staking is allowed.

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With this update, validators can finally withdraw their blocked ETH. The ‘staking’ function had been enabled, but that “investment” has been blocked for several years. Now it is no longer.

Approximately half of the 562,727 validators are withdrawing some Ethereum, reaping possible benefits they have had xcduring this time and that it has not been until Shapella that they have been able to move them out of place.

ETH unlocked

An estimated 18.1 million ETH have been unlocked, which equates to over €34 billion.  In other words, although Shapella already allows withdrawals, the average is a few Ethereum. Predictably, this is an amount similar to the profitability that will have been achieved during this time under the staking process.

Ethereum embraces a more decentralized ecosystem. By its nature Ethereum was already decentralized, but the move to ‘Proof of Stake’ is a big step in that direction. With Shapella anyone with a computer can validate transactions.

If before most of the nodes were in external exchanges such as Coinbase or Binance, now the maintenance of an own node, the so-called cold wallets, is promoted.

Paradoxically, Ethereum’s value has risen. Shapella allows investors to take their Ethereum, which technically should drive the value down. However, this freedom of movement has been well received and Ethereum is up around 10% since the arrival of the major update. Even surpassing the $2000 barrier.

The figures will vary depending on the week, but according to services such as Lookonchain, the number of deposits has exceeded the number of withdrawals.

Bitcoin’s dominance is evident, but Ethereum has been in second place for several years and far from losing steam, it has managed to consolidate itself as a very valid alternative to the most popular cryptocurrency.

Ethereum has millions of investors and hundreds of blockchain projects running on its protocol. The arrival of Shapella, staking and the freedom to withdraw funds will boost its use even more. Beyond the always volatile and unpredictable value of these cryptocurrencies, little by little their systems are being updated to allow new forms of monetization.