Ethereum…it’s becoming the settlement layer for the world of decentralized finance with
the successful launch of ETH2 & staking. If your blockchain isn’t connected to ETH,
it’s a blockchain that’s dead in the water. It’s why every blockchain has a bridge back
to Ethereum. Although Ethereum isn’t done…in this first quarter of 2023…a game-changing
upgrade is coming for ETH that will push it to new heights, reinforce its position as the
DeFi settlement layer, and the upgrade will rocket certain altcoins to the MOON. What’s
the upgrade & which altcoins? Find out in about ten minutes, because it’s time for Chico Crypto!
What is this game-changing upgrade coming to ETH this quarter?
Well pulling out the Ethereum roadmap, we can see the next upgrade after the merge is withdrawals
What are withdrawals?? Well the ETH2 chain is now secured by staking validators,
who are required to have a 32 ETH stake on their validator node….but since December of 2020,
any person who staked, had their 32 ETH locked, unable to withdraw…
Well with Ethereum’s next upgrade, named Shanghai,
withdrawals are a confirmed GO!!! And Shanghai is coming very soon,
the Ethereum devs just had their execution layer meeting, where they told us when….lets listen in….
Public testnet this month, and then
Shanghai on the mainnet in March because the news about is already releasing!!!
Why is this BULLISH!!?? Before Shanghai, Eth2.0 staking was unavailable for withdrawal,
which made many users skeptical of staking ETH. With this barrier out
of the way come March, the demand for staking ETH will rise exponentially…
Checking out the beacon chain website, we can see Ethereum is coming up on half a million
validators…with withdrawal implemented the amount of staked ETH is going to explode.
A Mark of DeFiYield App tweeted “After the Shanghai Eth update, developers expect that
by the end of 2023, 80% of the $ETH supply will be staked. At the moment it is only 14%”
(Link #2 Solana Validators)(Link #3 Cardano Validators)(Link #4 Avalanche Validators)
1 million ETH staking validators would put Ethereum into a category
other blockchains could only dream of…checking out ETH “competitors” Solana has barely over
2000 validators, Cardano has just over 3200, and Avalanche has just over 1200…
Even where Ethereum is right now, with 500k validators…it has 15,525% more validators than
the next most robust, Cardano with about 3200 validators. Withdrawals are just going to push
this number up even further…to where these competitors will never be able to catch up…
So my friends, I solo stake ETH & that is what I recommend everyone do. If you have
32 ETH don’t stake with centralized entities like Binance…not your keys,
not your coins!! To stake, I use an avado i7, the plug and play staking hardware that takes
the complexity out of the staking process…you don’t need to be “super” technical with avado.
And guess what? One of the Chico army members heeded my early advice,
getting 32 eth and an avado…and they just found their first block,
which means they get the transaction fees for that block,
Link to purchase avado can be found at ava.do/shop/cc which I’ve included in
the comments and description of this vid if you are thinking about solo staking soon!!
Although, regarding withdrawals this is going to open up a new narrative & major
opportunities for altcoins who focus on liquid staking derivatives….
Liquid staking derivatives? What are those?? Well many people don’t have 32
Ethereum to stake so liquid staking protocols were created where users pool together their
Ethereum and the protocol stakes it on their behalf, in return users are
issued Liquid Staking Derivatives (LSDs) to represent their stake of Ethereum in the pool.
And again, with withdrawals opened ....those without 32 Ethereum,
the people who have just a couple or maybe even a half an Ethereum…will
be more inclined to stake with these Liquid Staking protocols.
Now the most popular LSD protocol?? That has been LIDO since it launched in December of 2021,
1 year after ethereum staking went live in December of 2020.
As we can see from this dune analytics dashboard on ETH 2 and staking, LIDO is #1 with over 146
thousand validators giving them a market share of nearly 30 percent!!
This isn’t good, having nearly 30 percent of ETH validators controlled by just 1
entity….but let me tell you…LIDO is a short in my honest opinion, and with Shanghai coming in
the next couple of months, other LSD’s are going to eat heavily into that market share…
Why? Nearly 30 percent of all staked ETH is in Lido,
because of the high emissions of $LDO token for staking with them…which is
a big incentive provider in Curve for the ETH/stETH from Lido liquidity pool.
Now emissions of $LDO tokens is ending and will not be able to support the incentives they ahd
been providing in the ETH/stETH LP on curve, which was a BIG reason people were staking with LIDO..
In my opinion, because of the token emissions going away, many people and
even large funds are going to look for new places to stake, where they can get Higher rewards!!
Soooo where will they move? Well you guys know I’ve been a big fan of Rocketpool
for the longest time, providing updates and providing the alpha on the regular…
Well things have paid off lately…last week the RPL token was added to the big exchanges
like Binance and Kucoin…leading to a big boost in the price…
Checking out dune analytics, we can see RPL market share is way down there compared to Lido,
just above 2 percent share….so obviously Rocketpool still has a ton of room to
grow…and the BIG exchanges see that, it’s why they listed their governance token…
Rocketpool is going to rocket come March….but there is another LSD protocol which is seeing
massive growth lately, and in my opinion will also steal a bunch
of LIDOs staking market share…and this one has the most room to grow…
Checking out the dune analytics dashboard….FRAX
Finance has under a .3 percent market share of Ethereum staked…
Why will people move to FRAX? Well Frax offers the highest APR in the
business for staking with them, which hovers in the 6 to 10 percent range,
while the closest competitor rocketpool is offering about 5%...
How are they able to provide such high APRs? Users deposit ETH and receive frxETH. frxETH is
backed 1:1 with ETH but It has no attributes like rebasing and does
not accrue any staking yield. So where does that yield come from? Well frxETH
can be used in DeFi applications such as the ETH/frxETH Curve pool & since Frax Finance is
one of the largest $CVX holders, users can earn a high yield (~10%) on Convex Finance!
Basically, Frax is replacing Lido and that is oh so bullish. Cheers viewers I’ll see you next time