I can imagine that you are curious but crypto is full of announcements and castle in the skies I'm not going to participate in. Additionally development is all over the place at the moment.
Also core updates has never pushed the price upwards in my opinion as the main functionality is working: transactions. As everything consists of transactions there will not be a new killer feature soon on core level.
Everything else is on top of it anybody can participate in. Getting listed on new exchanges, payment channels and services are more likely to push the value of each coin. I'm talking about shapeshift, changelly, coinroom for example.
This kind of development is in the hand of the community anyways and don't need code.
Stability, robustness and usability should be in the focus of the coders these months if I could decide it. Not very exciting and prestigious but necessary.