Today, the Ethereum blockchain is going to experience the much-awaited Shanghai upgrade, also known as Shapella. This upgrade is remarkable since it enables validators to withdraw staked ether, along with newly earned rewards, which had been previously locked up.

The impacts of this upgrade have been highly debated among analysts. JPMorgan (JPM) anticipates ether to bear the consequences of some selling pressure, as more than a million ether staking rewards become available this week. The burden is likely to increase more sharply in the coming days due to the amount of staked ether which belongs to "troubled entities." As a result of this, the bank predicts ether to underperform bitcoin (BTC) in the upcoming weeks. Contrastingly, Bank of America (BAC) tend to disregard the Ethereum upgrade's direct influence on ether's value in the market, due to its lowered liquidity condition, inflowing exchanges, derivatives action and prices related to the "Merge" upgrade.

Coinbase, however, declares the ETH sell-off due to this event might be quite restricted, approximating an amount of just 1 to 2% of total everyday ether trading volumes. Analysts David Duong and Brian Cubellis observe that this occurrence is not heavily reliant on technicals, instead largely depending on the extents to which risk assets flow in and out of the crypto market. The linkage of this upcoming upgrade and investors' decisions in de-risking their portfolios has yet to be witnessed.

At the time of writing, ETH is trading 2.5% lower at around $1870. Analysts and observers have yet to observe the results of the Shanghai upgrade, and its presumed impacts on ether's price.



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