Bitcoin Holds $30K, Ethereum Drops Before Shapella Upgrade, Dogecoin Down: Analyst Predicts Drop For Top Crypto

Major coins traded mixed on Tuesday evening, as investors eagerly anticipated two significant events happening on Wednesday — the consumer price index, or CPI, report for March and the Ethereum Shapella upgrade.

What Happened: Bitcoin broke through a major milestone on Monday evening (ET) as it surpassed the critical $30,000 threshold for the first time since June last year. 

At the time of writing, the global crypto market capitalization stood at $1.23 trillion, an increase of 0.65% over the last day.  

Equity markets were mixed Tuesday afternoon, with the S&P 500 closing flat 0.0044% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq sliding 0.4%.

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News Highlights: Ethereum’s upcoming Shapella upgrade is generating buzz among validators and market experts alike. The upgrade is slated to go live on Wednesday evening (ET), and promises to bring about significant changes for validators, enabling them to finally withdraw their long-locked-up ETH from the Beacon Chain.

Analyst Notes: Edward Moya, senior market analyst at OANDA, said, "The Ethereum community is excited that the Shanghai upgrade is finally here.​ This massive network upgrade will take place on April 12 at 6:27 p.m. EST. ​This means that 18 million tokens are freed from the Ethereum Beacon chain, so they can sell it, hold it, or stake it for longer." ​ ​

He added, "A lot didn't think it would happen as it didn't seem like it would be possible to withdraw staked ETH? If people were eager to sell they could have sold their staked ETH, so it might not necessarily trigger a ‘sell the news event' reaction.”

According to crypto analyst Michaël Van de Poppe, Bitcoin still holds a strong upward momentum, making it a force to be reckoned with, particularly through Q2. As Powell’s hikes come to an end, we can expect a boost in the Bitcoin market, just as we witnessed a significant rally in Q2 of 2019. However, Van de Poppe predicts a slight correction to $25,000 in the latter half of the year, attributing it to the potential slump in the economy.

Pseudonymous crypto analyst Rekt Capital believes that at this stage, BTC is looking more like 2019 rather than 2015.

Regarding BTC, another pseudonymous analyst Pentoshi stated that there have been some inquiries on the matter. In his opinion, an alt season is likely to occur within the next 2-4 weeks, but only if Bitcoin remains relatively stagnant during that time. Additionally, altcoins are currently approaching their 2017/18 highs.

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