In the merely first four days of the Shapella hard fork taking place, more than 1 million Ether (worth $2.1 billion) were removed from Ethereum’s Beacon Chain. At the same time, the Ether crossed $2,100 for the first time in 11 months. As a result, it gained approximately 10% in value after the Shapella hard fork on April 12.
According to beacon chain statistics, the 1.03 million ETH withdrawals resulted from 473,700 withdrawal requests on April 15 making it the busiest withdrawal day with 392,800 ETH. Moreover, nearly 87% can withdraw their staked Ether or 469,000 of the 540,000 active validators. Also, according to CoinGecko, ETH has grown by around 9% since the Shapella update took effect late on April 12.
According to the CEO of blockchain consulting and development firm Labrys, the majority of the stake that has been withdrawn is going back to Beacon Chain as validators look forward to compounding their interest. As a result, their net stake seems to grow.
It is also believed that Shapella’s hard fork will only increase the quantity of Ether staked in the medium to long term and strengthen Ethereum at the consensus level. Since Shapella is a massive de-risking event, thus ETH will be staked in the medium to long term and will set a new record for the amount of Ether staked.
The suspension of Kraken’s staking services also seemed to have contributed to the ETH price. It indicates that Kraken’s staking business will only have a transitory effect on Ether as it witnesses a substantial demand from investors who can now bet with more insight into the liquidity of staked holdings.
The 1 million mark is a 500% increase over an April 11 projection by blockchain analytics startup Glassnode, which predicted just 170,000 Ether would be un-staked after Shapella’s first week.
