Ether (ETH) has gained traction over the past seven days as market participants prepare for Ethereum’s April 12 Shanghai hard fork, which aims to address staked ETH withdrawals. On Thursday, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization was trading at $1,876. The Shanghai fork could mean an uncertain future for Ether's price, however some observers are speculating a surge amid growing interest in the Ethereum platform. Liquid staking tokens flattened on Thursday, as developers anticipate that stakers won't be able to access their ETH withdrawals until no sooner than early May.

The largest cryptocurrency by market value, Bitcoin (BTC) was trading around $28,100 on Thursday, down 0.1% from Wednesday. BTC has been range-bound since then, trading between $27,200 and $28,200. Major stock markets closed in green ahead of the US nonfarm payrolls (NFP) job report due out tomorrow, including S&P 500 increasing by 0.3% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq rising 0.7%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) stayed flat. Treasury rates also stayed level Thursday, with the 2-year and 10-year sitting at 3.82% and 3.29%, respectively.

Staking is a key component of the crypto universe, and many institutional players have taken interest in this "yield option" as crypto research firm Delphi Digital's research analysts point out. Ethereum's Shanghai fork will allow for users to freely stake and un-stake ETH, which could bring a surge of more institutional investors. Gökçe Guven, co-founder and CEO of Kalder, commented that "larger institutional players often base whether or not they choose to get exposure to a certain asset class on whether there is the option to get yield."

Though markets are closed this Friday for Good Friday, Edward Moya, senior market analyst at foreign exchange market maker Oanda, suggests that traders could look to the "365 days a year" cryptocurrency market. He says Bitcoin has the chance to breach the $30,000 level over the weekend due to traders trying to take advantage while other markets are inactive. Should the NFP report tomorrow show that the US economy is worse than expected, Moya analysis predicts this could be a major boost for the crypto world.



Other News from Today