ADVANCEMENTS IN THE CRYPTOCURRENCY WORLD

ETHER HITS 11-MONTH HIGH AS POST-SHAPELLA WITHDRAWALS PASS 1M ETH

Since the Shapella hard fork on April 12, Ether has seen a price gain of nearly 10%.

Over 1 million Ether ETH $2,080 worth $2.1 billion has now been withdrawn from Ethereum’s Beacon Chain within the first four days of the Shapella hard fork and Ether has pushed over $2,100 for the first time in 11 months.

The 1.03 million ETH withdrawals have come from 473,7000 withdrawal requests, with Saturday, April 15 the largest withdrawal day at 392,800 ETH, according to data from beaconcha.in.

Of the active validators, nearly 87% or 469,000 of the 540,000 are now able to withdraw their staked Ether.

While members of the Ethereum community were split on what impact Shapella would have on the price of Ether, the first four days have produced close to a 10% rise.

The figures are of little “surprise” to Lachlan Feeney, chief executive of blockchain consulting and development firm Labrys, who told Cointelegraph that many validators are re-staking Ether back onto the Beacon Chain:

“Much of the stake that has been withdrawn over the last few days is actually going straight back into The Beacon Chain as validators are looking to compound their interest. So much so that net stake is currently increasing.”

Given the current macroeconomic climate, Feeney said that many early stakers wanted to liquidate after what has been nearly a 30-month wait for some.

Over the mid to long-term, Feeney believes the Shapella hard fork will only increase the amount of Ether staked, which of course will only strengthen Ethereum at the consensus level. Read more...