What happened
The price of Ether (ETH +1.34%), the native cryptocurrency on the Ethereum blockchain, has been choppy today, getting off to a good start in the early morning before giving up those gains around noon.
The price of Ether, the second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, had risen nearly 2% from midnight to more than $2,162, before dropping back down to roughly $2,118 by 12:35 p.m. on Wednesday.
So what
The broader cryptocurrency market is coming off a nice rebound this weekend in which the largest cryptocurrency, Bitcoin (BTC +1.49%), rose 15%.
In terms of more Ether-specific news, the Ethereum launchpad announced that it currently has more than 5.9 million Ether tokens, or roughly 5% of the total supply, being staked and 180,000 validators on the network. This is a big jump from December, when only 1.6% of the supply was being staked.
Image source: Getty Images.
This is a big deal because the developers behind the Ethereum blockchain are currently working on a set of massive upgrades called Ethereum 2.0. This will transition the network from a proof-of-work concept that relies on energy-intensive mining to a much more sustainable method called staking to validate transactions and mint new tokens.
Staking is a process in which Ether owners store a certain number of tokens away in a crypto wallet on their own personal device, and then use those tokens to validate and forge new Ether tokens. It's a more energy-efficient substitute for mining cryptocurrency.
The increase in validators willing to stake follows a significant drop in transaction fees on the Ethereum network, which has been another positive for Ether.
Now what
The increase in staking is good news for Ethereum 2.0, which I believe will be a major positive catalyst for Ether once the transition is complete. That likely won't happen until sometime in 2022 at the earliest. I am not sure if the cryptocurrency market has bottomed yet, but I'm certainly holding my Ether long term.
