Ether Hits 11-Month High As Post-Shapella Withdrawals Passed 1 Million ETH

Over a million Ether Within the first four days of the Shapella hard fork, $2,094 worth of $2.1 billion was removed from Ethereum’s Beacon Chain, and Ether has exceeded $2,100 for the first time in 11 months. According to beaconcha.in statistics, 1.03 million ETH withdrawals resulted from 473,700 withdrawal requests, with Saturday, April 15 being the highest withdrawal day with 392,800 ETH.

Nearly 87%, or 469,000 of the 540,000 active validators, are now able to withdraw the staked Ether. While the Ethereum community is divided over Shapella’s influence on the price of Ether, the first four days saw a 10% increase. The numbers are not a “surprise” to Lachlan Feeney, CEO of consulting and blockchain development firm Labrys, who told Cointelegraph that many validators are staking Ether back into Beacon Chain: “A lot of shares have pulled over the past few years. some days it’s actually going right back to The Beacon Chain as validators want to add to their interest. So much so that the net stakes have grown.

Given the current macroeconomic environment, Feeney notes that many early-bird investors are looking to cash in after about 30 months of waiting for some. Feeney feels that the Shapella hard fork will only increase the amount of Ether staked in the medium to long term, which will increase Ethereum at a consensus level: “Because Shapella is a big risky event, more, not less, ETH will become staked in the medium to long term. long.” We predict that in the not too distant future, we will set a new record for the amount of Ether staked.”

According to Markus Thielen, head of research at digital asset platform Matrixport, the shutdown of crypto exchange betting service Kraken may have led to higher numbers:

“This appears to be primarily due to Kraken’s staking business being cancelled.” This will only be a temporary effect as we are also witnessing substantial demand from investors who can now bet with more insight into the liquidity of the holdings at stake.”

Thielen anticipates large amounts of unstaken Kraken Ether will be “recycled” back into the Beacon Chain through other organizations. While Thielen expects the good price action to fade this week due to increased selling pressure, he believes Shapella will eventually attract more institutional investors to participate in Ethereum.

The 1 million figure is a 500% increase over the April 11 projection by blockchain analytics startup Glassnode, which predicts only 170,000 Ether will not be staked after the first week of Shapella. Nansen, an on-chain analytics startup, predicts 1.4 million Ether will be written off after the first few days of Shapella.