That’s a First After Shanghai: Ether Staked Volume Exceeds Withdrawals

 The upgrade pushed ETH’s price to the highest level since May 2022.

Ethereum successfully implemented a long-awaited tech upgrade on April 12.

Also known as Shapella – this upgrade enabled withdrawals for the first time from the proof-of-stake blockchain.

A week later, the amount of staked Ether has now exceeded the number of ETH being withdrawn for the very first time.

According to the on-chain analytic platform Nansen, withdrawal requests have taken a backseat while Ether is being staked at a fast pace. As of April 17th, the amount of ETH staked was recorded to be 124,000. This is almost double of ETH withdrawal which stands at 64,800.

Over the past day alone, almost 95,000 ETH has been staked. Contrastingly, a little over 27,000 ETH was withdrawn during the same timeframe.

Several whale accounts also have contributed to the trend. Data from Lookonchain suggests that a number of whales have started restaking a notable quantity of ETH that they withdrew when the Shapella upgrade went live.

Whale restaking further eliminates the previous concerns about a potential sell-off as a result of market flooding with millions of unlocked ETH. Additionally, the locking of the tokens creates scarcity.

It has now over 18.6 million ETH, worth $36 billion, locked in staking contracts.

The withdrawals hit 1 million ETH in the first week alone, but the exodus slowed down.

Lido Finance accounted for 30.9% of Ethereum depositors, followed by Coinbase with 12.7%, Kraken with 6.9%, and Binance with 5.5%, among others.

News of the implementation helped Ethereum climb an 11-month high above $2,100. The world’s largest altcoin even outperformed Bitcoin to register the new local peak.