The staking process on Ethereum 2.0 is live for almost a week now. And it has left the cryptocurrency in a moderately bullish state.

ETH/USD is up more than 12 percent on a month-to-date timeframe, trading at circa $447 as of 1252 GMT. The pair’s move uphill appears in the wake of a strong Bitcoin correlation, and also, as more and more Ethereum supply goes out of circulation.

The last six have witnessed deposits of more than 50,000 ETH tokens in the official contract of Ethereum 2.0, the name for the blockchain project’s protocol migration from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake. An upgraded Ethereum would allow people to stake their ETH holdings to run their blockchain network. Meanwhile, in return, it will pay stakers an annual interest.

Early Stakers FOMO

In a tweet published Monday, Cinneamhain Ventures’ partner Adam Cochran revealed that early stakers in Ethereum 2.0 could expect to generate roughly 36 percent annual-percentage yields (APY). Meanwhile, staking more than 1M ETH and 2.5 ETH could earn liquidity providers about 18 percent and 10.2 percent APY, respectively.

“Given slow uptake, early birds are going to make [a] massive profit,” added Mr. Cochran.

Ethereum 2.0 needs a minimum of 524,000 ETH to go live on December 1, 2020. But the protocol has attracted only 9.6 percent of the required sum as of November 10, 2020.

Only about 10% of the required ETH has been deposited so far, so while it may seem that the ETH 2 Beacon Chain (Phase 0) may not launch on December 1st, there’s still this possibility: pic.twitter.com/fmLRE715EG

— Omar Bham (Crypt0) (@crypt0snews) November 9, 2020

But analysts agree that the staking momentum would pick as the release date closes in, especially from the lot that mines Ethereum by running expensive computational setups. Staking would allow them to earn yields directly by depositing their tokens in an ETH 2.0 smart contract.

Moreover, major venture firms and cryptocurrency exchanges holding massive ETH tokens could also stake them in the smart contract.

For Ethereum traders, meanwhile, staking is a recipe for a bull market.

Eth2 is not priced in

ETH staking is not priced in

ETH as money is not priced in

Ethereum DeFi is not priced in

EIP1559 ETH burn is not priced in

ETH at $400 is hilarious

— Ryan Sean Adams – rsa.eth 🏴 (@RyanSAdams) November 5, 2020

The sentiment borrows cues from the classic supply-demand model. As Ethereum 2.0 takes more ETH out of circulation, and if the demand for those tokens increases amid the supply shock, the ETH/USD’s price trajectory is upward. Earlier, many DeFi tokens rallied by more than 1000 percent amid similar fundamentals.

Ethereum Technical Setup

The strong fundamental outlook is also visible in the technical narratives of leading market analysts.

One of them presented ETHUSD in a bullish continuation structure, awaiting a breakout that could push its price upward to $540. Dubbed as Bullish Pennant, the technical indicator has a 70 percent success rate in delivering bullish breakouts.

Ethereum trade setup, as presented by Crypto Rand. Source: ETHUSD on TradingView.com

Meanwhile, for another analyst, Zhi Ko, Ethereum is a great long-term investment. The Coindust app’s co-founder/CTO said she is moving 15 percent of her net portfolio in an ETH long position.

“Outside of [Bitcoin],” she explained, “it is almost a guarantee that large institutions will buy into ETH for the long term. Excited to see how the next 3-6 months play out.”