More ETH is currently being staked than withdrawn since the Shapella upgrade on April 12, with the staking volume of 124,000 ETH exceeding the withdrawal volume of 64,800 ETH for the first time. The majority of validators are restaking their unlocked Ether, and some have transferred it to centralized exchanges. The average price of staked ETH is about $2,137, and 22,231 validators have signed up for a complete exit out of 574,624.
According to Nansen analytics, 18.5% of Ethereum network validators holding 284,286 Ethereum, worth $596 million, have not updated their withdrawal credentials following the Shapella upgrade. Validators without updated credentials will have to wait for the network to run through and update them, which could take up to 100 hours. Over 31,166 validators have signaled for a "full exit," with 1,118,291 Ethereum, but half of that demand comes from Kraken, which recently shuttered its staking service in the US. Liquid staking platforms like Lido Finance and Rocketpool have signaled that upgrading credentials for stakers won't be an issue.
Over the past 24 hours, gross staking deposits of Ethereum have reached $198.7 million, or 94,800 ETH, following the network's latest Shanghai upgrade. Staking is when users pledge cryptocurrency to the network to keep it running, and those who stake earn digital currency rewards in the process. Ethereum made the move to proof of stake last year in a highly-anticipated transition, known as the merge. Validators can either choose between a "partial exit" or a "full exit" when leaving the network, and there are still more entities withdrawing than staking assets.
Following the successful Shanghai upgrade, many Ethereum validators have requested to unstake their ETH from the blockchain, causing a backlog of about two weeks for withdrawals. The number of validators waiting for redemptions has grown to about 17,000 for full withdrawals and 285,000 for partial withdrawals. The Ethereum blockchain is processing withdrawals at just 55.4% of its capacity, and there are still more withdrawals than deposits. Coinbase, which holds about 12.6% of all staked ETH, will allow its users to decide if they want to unstake. ETH is up about 5% over the last 24 hours.
Analysts estimate that around 170,000 Ethereum, worth approximately $326 million, will be sold following the highly anticipated Shanghai upgrade. Of the newly unlocked sum, approximately 70,000 ETH will come from validators exiting the network, pulling their staked holdings with them, while the remaining 100,000 ETH is expected to come from users withdrawing their staking rewards to sell on the market. However, analysts believe that the effects of Shanghai on the Ethereum market will likely be muted in the short term, and the move "is expected to be a lot less dramatic than many have painted it to be."
