Recently, the world’s second-largest crypto by market capitalization battled around the $1,600 level as the cryptocurrency market enters a consolidation period following the large upward movement seen during the first three weeks of January.
The asset started off the day trading at $1,554 and spent the following 10 hours trading sideways as the selling force looked to be stronger and avoided any significant increase in value.
At around 4 PM EST, Ethereum finally picked up the pace and began picking up steam, reaching $1,632 three hours after.
The currency followed by retracting back to below that resistance level, trading at around $1,595 at this time of writing.
Ethereum Completes the First Phase of The Shangai Hard Fork
Ethereum successfully completed the first stage of preparation for the total activation of the Shangai hard fork. The goal is to take the first step toward making staking transactions viable.
Marius Van Der Wijden, the creator of Go-Ethereum (GETH), was in charge of the test.
According to Van Der Wijden, the test began with “some issues since the configuration,”.
The team of developers had to intervene in order to correct the initial system defect. Following that minor misstep, Marius confirmed this morning, January 23, that the blockchain was already adding blocks, indicating that the test was successful.
The Ethereum Shanghai hard fork is a planned upgrade to the Ethereum blockchain that aims to improve the network’s performance and reduce costs for users.
The upgrade is scheduled to occur at block height 12,244,000 and will include a number of changes to the Ethereum protocol, including the introduction of a new mechanism for adjusting the difficulty of mining, called the “Shanghai Difficulty Bomb.”
Additionally, the hard fork will also activate the Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 2929, which will reduce block rewards and increase the cost of certain types of transactions. The hard fork was expected to occur in 2021, but the difficulties faced in 2022 by the crypto market had to postpone the implementation of the project.
