Ethereum’s Shanghai upgrade, implemented in April, does not appear to have increased activity on the world’s largest smart contract blockchain as many had hoped for, JPMorgan (JPM) said in a research report Thursday.
“While the shift from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS) that resulted from the Merge upgrade meant that the energy consumption for the Ethereum network collapsed by more than 99%, the ether supply is shrinking and staking rose sharply, the increase in network activity has been rather disappointing,” analysts led by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou wrote.
The bank notes that Ethereum’s daily transactions count has fallen 12% since the Shanghai upgrade, daily active addresses have dropped nearly 20%, and the total value locked (TVL) in decentralized finance (DeFi) on the blockchain has slumped almost 8%.
The fall in network activity suggests that the “bearish forces” of the past year, which include the collapse of Terra and