Ethereum’s impending Dencun upgrade could power rally to $3,500

Ethereum sat 50% away from its all-time high as of Feb. 8, but the latest technological upgrade known as Dencun could slingshot ETH to higher prices according to an analyst. 

MN Trading Founder and CEO Michaël van de Poppe opined that crypto’s second-largest asset, Ether (ETH), is “waking up” in terms of price movements and looks set to rally over 50% soon. 

Van de Poppe attributes this forthcoming ascent to Dencun, an upgrade to Ethereum’s blockchain architecture designed to bolster transaction capacity while simultaneously increasing data availability. 

People underestimate the significance of the Dencun upgrade on Ethereum. If that’s fully applied to the ecosystem, chances are significant that Ethereum becomes the secure settlement layer the ecosystem is looking for. Good signs that it launched on the final testnet.

Michaël van de Poppe, founder and CEO, MN Trading

ETH changed hands for around $2,400 at press time per CoinGecko, but van de Poppe predicted the price level could surge as high as $3,500. The cryptocurrency reached an all-time high at the peak of the bull run in 2021, achieving $4,878 per token. 

Ethereum’s Dencun upgrade

Proto-danksharding is the focal point of ETH’s Dencun upgrade, a feature enshrined in EIP-4844. ETH developers have touted the add-on to benefit layer-2 networks, especially by introducing an additional data field called a blob. 

As crypto.news reported, this will allow L2s like Arbitrum, Optimism, and Polygon to access more transaction bandwidth without longer processing timeframes on ETH’s main network.

Dencun is purportedly the most important upgrade since Shanghai activated staked ETH withdrawals following Ethereum’s evolution to a proof-of-stake model, otherwise known as The Merge.

Developers have mentioned Mar. 13 as the day Dencun ships, barring delays. The upgrade was successfully deployed on major Ethereum testnets including Goerli, Sepolia, and most recently, Holesky. 

Another catalyst that may contribute to ETH’s rally is the potential approval of a spot ETH ETF. However, regulators at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission have delayed decisions until May, and individual commissioners have expressed differences in opinions about this asset class.