The Ethereum price has broken market trends so far this week, registering considerable gains in the first six days of February.

The price of the world's second-largest crypto rose from $2,241 to $2,326 between 31 January and 6 February. Whereas during the same period, the total crypto market capitalisation fell 2%, a fall of over $37 billion.

As such, with the Ethereum price outperforming the market average, its resilience amid the wider market downturn indicates a number of fundamental bullish factors.

As well as the speculation surrounding the spot Ethereum exchange-traded funds (ETFs), the principal force behind Ethereum's recent price action this month seems to be the recent uptick in ETH 2.0 staking deposits, FX Empire reports.

Indeed, the Ethereum 2.0 staking has become a key fixture within the ETH ecosystem since April 2023, when the Shapella upgrade saw the transition to Proof of Stake consensus.

Furthermore, co-founder, Vitalik Buterin has proposed several further network improvement proposals such as a gas limit rise.

In addition, the so-called Dencun upgrade, due to be completed on 7 February is also forecast to boost the scalability of the network. According to a U Today report: "The Dencun upgrade will attempt to resolve scalability issues while also making Ethereum more cost-effective as a protocol. The Dencun upgrade will specifically introduce proto-dank sharding, a compressed data storage mechanism dubbed "blobs" to help optimise performance."

Consequently, the surge in staking and positive sentiment towards forthcoming network enhancements have bolstered Ethereum's recent price movements. With these influences continuing, Ethereum may make another push towards the challenging $2,500 price goal in the near future.