The Ethereum price has fallen 2.52% in the last 24 hours to reach $1,642 amid a 2.52% drop in the current market. Despite this drop, its current price is up 5.2% in one week and 37.6% so far this year.
ETH is one of the best tokens for a rally as the crypto market continues to rally this year. Indicators for the altcoin suggest that it could fall soon, with its relative strength index (RSI) dipping below 60. Similarly, its 30-day moving average has stopped rising against it.
These doubts aside, ETH continues to have the strongest fundamentals in the market. Its total value locked up of $28.85 billion represents 58.72% of the entire DeFi sector, although that percentage is even higher if Ethereum-based layer two networks are included.
Ethereum has an early lead and many users because it is the one platform that everyone else is on. And since Ethereum completed its proof-of-concept transition in September, it has laid the groundwork for increasing its speed, scalability, and efficiency.
In fact, Ethereum has only risen since the September merger, when news broke that payment giant Visa is testing stablecoin USDC payments on the ETH blockchain. Also, Visa’s previous support for Ethereum is good news for the platform, suggesting that large companies believe it will succeed.
How the Shanghai hard fork will affect ETH
Ethereum is gearing up for a Shanghai upgrade that will allow staked ETH withdrawals. While some argue that this will flood the market with newly released ETH, it will likely have the opposite effect, as it will complete Ethereum’s transition to a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism.
Additionally, whales and other larger investors have been dumping ETH in recent months. For example, data collected by Sentiment suggests that the value of ETH held on exchanges has fallen 37.3% since the merger, while the total amount of ETH has fallen 31% over the same period.
