Share this article
Bitcoin Slips Under $30K, Ether Staking Tokens Take a Beating Ahead of Shapella Upgrade
Traders are likely taking profits ahead of Wednesday’s CPI report and Ethereum’s Shapella upgrade.
Updated Apr 12, 2023, 2:21 p.m. Published Apr 12, 2023, 6:21 a.m.
Bitcoin slipped under the crucial $30,000 level in early European hours on Wednesday, with overall market capitalization falling 1.2% in the past 24 hours.
Ether traded just over $1,860, leading the drop among major tokens. Solana's SOL remained in the green, while BNB, Cardano's ADA and XRP gave up gains from Monday night.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
Don't miss another story.Subscribe to the Crypto Daybook Americas Newsletter today. See all newsletters
The so-called Liquid Staking tokens slumped. Lido’s LDO governance tokens fell as much as 10%, while Rocket Pool’s RPL dropped 8%. Both protocols lock billions of dollars to provide yields on ether staking to users, who can stake any amount of ether to earn rewards without requiring to put up 32 ether to run a validator node.
Wednesday morning's drop caused over 96% in longs, or bets on rising prices, to be liquidated since early Asian hours, data shows.
Traders likely took profits ahead of two key developments scheduled for Wednesday: The U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI) for March, and the much-awaited Shapella upgrade for the Ethereum network.
The U.S. Federal Reserve is still concerned about sticky inflation, and softer inflation data may allow the Fed to go for a 25 basis points rate hike at the Federal Open Market Committee meeting on May 2 – which could buoy traditional markets and riskier assets such as bitcoin.
On the other hand, Shappella – a portmanteau of Shanghai and Capella, two major Ethereum network upgrades that are expected to occur simultaneously on April 12 – will allow investors to withdraw their ether staked on the Ethereum blockchain. Staked ether cannot be withdrawn or freely traded currently.
As such, some say the event could prove bullish for ether as staking and capturing yields directly from the blockchain becomes more accessible to users.
“Allowing withdrawals, boosted by the recent popularity of liquid staking platforms, will make ETH staking much more accessible to retail investors who were previously unwilling to stake ETH for an undetermined amount of time,” said Chen Zhuling, CEO at staking service RockX, in a note to CoinDesk earlier this week.
For now, however, traders seem to risking off.
More For You
What to know:
- As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
- GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
- Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.
More For You
Coinbase Sees Crypto Recovery Ahead as Liquidity Improves and Fed Rate Cut Odds Climb
The crypto exchange also took note of a so-called AI bubble that continues to go strong and a weaker U.S. dollar.
What to know:
- Coinbase Institutional is seeing a potential December recovery in crypto, citing improving liquidity and a shift in macroeconomic conditions that could favor risk assets like bitcoin.
- The firm's optimism is driven by rising odds of Federal Reserve rate cuts, with markets pricing in a 93% chance easing next week, and improving liquidity conditions.
- Several recent institutional developments, including Vanguard's crypto ETF policy reversal and Bank of America's greenlighting of crypto allocations, have contributed to bitcoin's rebound from recent lows.
Top Stories
