• Ethereum successfully implemented the Shapella upgrade on mainnet on Wednesday.
• ETH has had a surprising reaction to the historical upgrade, with 73,214 ETH having been withdrawn so far.
• The Shapella upgrade marks the full implementation of the proof-of-stake consensus mechanism on Ethereum.
Shapella Upgrade Activated: ETH Reacts to Staking Withdrawals
Overview
The Shapella (Shanghai and Capella) upgrade hit Ethereum mainnet on Wednesday at 11:27 PM UTC. ETH has had a surprising reaction to the historical upgrade, as 73,214 ETH have been withdrawn since staking withdrawals were enabled. This development marks the full implementation of the proof-of-stake consensus mechanism on Ethereum.
Withdrawals Enabled
ETH staking withdrawals were enabled on Wednesday at 11:27 PM UTC and since then, ETH has been trading flat and is currently at $1,913 according to CoinGecko data. Most of the withdrawn ETH so far have been staking rewards ranging from 2 to 4 ETH. Since staking withdrawals went live a few hours ago, only 0.269% of total staked ETH decreased. 27,181 withdrawals have already been processed and distributed according to beaconcha.in data. 19,621 validators out of 567,209 are waiting to exit the program fully while 566 already exited which makes up just 0.1%. Huobi is reportedly able to withdraw 39,776 ETH – most among other entities – followed by PieDAO (with 27,270) and Kraken (with 19,616).
Potential Selling Risk
As more validators can exit the staking program with their rewards due to Shapella activation there is potential risk for selling pressure that could affect charts negatively in short term perspective.
What Is Shappella?
The Shappella upgrade is one of largest upgrades in Ethereum’s history as it enables users enter or exit staking programs whenever they want without locking up significant amounts of time or resources for doing so.