Fintech Helio Raises $3.3M in Seed Funding to Expand Web3 Payments Platform
London-based fintech Helio has raised $3.3M in a seed funding round led by Peak and Lightspeed Faction, with participation from RockawayX, Solana Labs, and angel investors. The company's Web3 payments platform enables merchants, dApps, and creators to accept instant crypto payments across multiple blockchains, including Solana, Polygon, and Ethereum.
Ether Price Cracks $2K Amid Staking Withdrawals Enabled Post-shapella Upgrade
Despite concerns about a potential dump due to a new supply of Ether (ETH) hitting the markets after the Shapella upgrade, ETH surpassed $2,000 almost a day after the successful implementation at 10:27 pm UTC on April 12. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro shows that the token reached its highest level since August. The upgrade allows staked ETH withdrawals for users who previously had no way to take back their funds after staking. Despite the new supply of ETH hitting the markets, the price of ETH managed to hit $2,000 and is currently maintaining that level.
Crypto Evening Briefing: Twitter Partners With eToro to Let Users Trade Stocks, Crypto As Musk Pushes App Into Finance
Twitter users will be able to access stocks, cryptocurrencies and other financial assets through a partnership with eToro, a social trading company.
All You Need to Know About Ethereum’s Shanghai Upgrade
Ethereum’s upcoming Shanghai fork is the biggest upgrade since the September transition to the proof of stake (PoS) consensus, known as the Merge.
Ether Nears $2K After Shanghai Upgrade, Outshines Bitcoin
Ether rose to $1,994 on Thursday, reaching the highest point since August. The rally comes after the successful Shapella network upgrade, which enables withdrawals for users who have staked their ether. Ether has gained over 3% since the upgrade, while bitcoin has added less than 2%. The demand for unstaking ether has been moderate, and the biggest unstaker so far has been Kraken, which is shutting down its staking service for U.S. users as part of a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Liquid staking solution Lido makes up around 31% of all ether deposits. Year-to-date, ether is up 65.25%, compared to bitcoin, up 82.04%.
Ethereum Shapella Upgrade: Community Celebrates As Update Goes Live on Mainnet
The Shapella update has gone live on Ethereum, allowing for new features such as the unstaking of Ether (ETH). Ethereum Foundation researcher Danny Ryan and Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin offered their congratulations to the developers of the network, with Buterin saying that the network is now in a "really good place." The next major feature, EIP-4844, aims to enhance the scalability of rollups on Ethereum. Analytics firm Glassnode expects that less than 1% of staked ETH will be sold following the update, and mechanisms are in place to prevent a massive flood of ETH supply from being dumped in the markets. Freddy Zwanzger, Ethereum ecosystem lead at Blockdaemon, foresees that there may be more interest in ETH staking opportunities from larger investors since there's a clear withdrawal option in place now.
Ethereum’s Shapella Upgrade Pushes Ether Price Toward $2,000 for First Time Since August
The price of Ethereum's native coin, ether, has increased by 2.75% over the past five hours to $1,970 following the completion of the Shapella upgrade, Ethereum's first significant upgrade since The Merge. The upgrade allows staked ether to be withdrawn from the network for the first time, and over 822,000 ether worth around $1.6 billion is pending withdrawal. Despite the potential sell-side pressure, ether volumes have increased as the price approaches pre-Merge highs, with volumes of the most popular trading pair, ETH/USDT on Binance, topping $1.28 billion in the past 24 hours. The three most-prominent governance tokens for liquid staking protocols, Lido DAO, Rocket Pool, and Frax Ether, have all jumped 5.2% in the last 24 hours, according to CoinGecko.
Ethereum 2.0 Roadmap: What’s Next After Shanghai Upgrade?
This update, known as EIP-4895, will enable ETH validators to unlock their staked ETH within the network. As a result, staked ETH and associated rewards will become accessible, considerably increasing ETH liquidity in the cryptocurrency market.
OKX Survey: 83% of Community Expects More ETH Staking Around Shanghai-Capella Upgrade, 63% See New Record High by End of 2023
83% of those surveyed expect that more ETH will be staked in the next three months.
Blockchain Capital Sold Off LDO, RPL Before Shanghai Upgrade
Blockchain Capital has sold significant amounts of liquid staking derivatives (LSDs) ahead of Ethereum's Shanghai upgrade. According to Lookonchain, the venture firm sold 1.5 million LDO worth $2.52 million and 65,352 RPL worth $2.9 million, no longer holding any LDO but retaining 107,085 RPL valued at $4.52 million.
