Surging Ahead: Ethereum Staking Exceeds Withdrawals For The First Time Since Shapella Upgrade

On April 12th, the Ethereum community successfully completed the highly anticipated Shapella upgrade. This allows validators to withdraw their staked Ether from the Beacon Chain after three years.

Despite concerns about a potential mass sell-off, data from on-chain analytics firm Nansen suggests that more ETH is being staked than withdrawn, with the ETH staking volume of 124,000 ETH exceeding the withdrawal volume of 64,800 ETH as of April 17th.

The Surprising Success of Ethereum Shapella Upgrade

The amount of staked ETH has surpassed the number of ETH being withdrawn for the first time since the Shapella upgrade

In the last 24 hours alone, the amount of staked Ethereum was 94,968 against 27,076 in withdrawals. The first round of withdrawals was primarily partial withdrawals from Lido and old validators. It took three days for them to get into the withdrawal queue.

Contrary to common perception, the majority of validators are re-staking their unlocked Ether. Three addresses re-staked ETH totaling 19,844 ETH from the 1 million withdrawn ETH.

Following withdrawal, three addresses transferred ETH to centralized exchanges, totaling 71,444 ETH remitted to various exchanges.

According to statistics released by Lookonchain, whales are also re-staking their unlocked Ether, with some transferring it to the Huobi staking address and a few others to CEX.

How many of the withdrawn $ETH has been re-staked after the #Shanghai upgrade?

How many were sold off?

We analyze the top $ETH withdrawal addresses and staking addresses.

1. 🧵
Here are some findings. pic.twitter.com/dGyHiurzBD

— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) April 17, 2023

The majority of the early withdrawals are staking rewards. However, an SEC regulation compelled a few validators, such as Kraken, to discontinue operations.

The successful withdrawals have not resulted in a high number of validators signing up for a full exodus. Only 22,231 validators out of a total of 574,624 have registered for the full exodus, which is expected to remove 910,930 ETH out of the 18.6 million Ethereum.

Another significant factor for decreasing withdrawals might be the Ethereum price, which is now at $2,116 per staked ETH.

Related Reading | Bitcoin Poised For Surge To $40k As Interest Rates Ease, Predicts Mike Novogratz

Binance has announced that it will start accepting withdrawals from April 19. It’s unclear if Ethereum staking will continue as a trend or if there will be future withdrawals.

Regardless, the Shapella upgrade has proven to be a success, with the Ethereum blockchain remaining strong in the face of potential risks.