The on-chain analytics service Nansen made the announcement on May 8 that the amount of Ethereum owned by exchanges has dropped to its lowest level in six months. On centralized exchanges, there are only 26.5 million ETH, which are currently worth approximately $49 billion.
The total quantity of Ethereum (ETH) traded on exchanges has decreased by almost 10% since the beginning of the year. In addition to this, with the failure of the FTX exchange in late 2022, there was a significant movement of Ethereum away from trading platforms.
According to Nansen, Coinbase holds the greatest part of the Ethereum exchange market, accounting for 31% of the total or 7.91 million ETH. Binance is in second place with 19% of the exchange’s ETH balance, which is equivalent to 4.78 million ETH. Bitfinex is in third place with 8.3%. Â
Because there are so many options to generate a profit inside the Ethereum ecosystem, leaving it on an exchange to gather dust is not the best use of your time. Furthermore, a significant portion of the ETH that has been removed from exchanges has been sent to self-custody addresses and staked addresses. On May 8, an analytics service by the name of Glassnode revealed what had become of the 1.55 million ETH that had been removed off the Beacon Chain.
According to what was stated, there was not a substantial increase in the volume of currency exchanges after the Shanghai upgrade. As a result, contrary to what was anticipated, there was no increase in the amount of pressure exerted by sellers when withdrawals were made possible. Â After an early spike in the number of withdrawal requests, it was observed that the number of stake exits has since decreased and is presently remaining stable between 300 and 700 every day.
When it came to ETH withdrawals, Kraken was responsible for approximately 32% of all transactions. This was because of an enforcement action taken by the SEC, which led to the termination of staking services provided by Kraken. According to Glassnode, Lido has reaped the greatest benefits from the Shapella improvement despite the fact that it does not currently support withdrawals.
Currently, Lido has a market share that accounts for 33.5% of the total, and Coinbase is in second place with an 11.5% share as a staking provider. The researchers came to the following conclusion after conducting their investigation: “Overall, the results of the analysis suggest that the mechanics of Proof-of-Stake for both incoming and exiting validators have played out as intended, with Ethereum’s consensus mechanism remaining stable throughout the process.”
In spite of the relatively light selling pressure that has followed Shapella’s launch, ETH prices have been retreating in the wake of their larger sibling’s success. At the time this article was written, the price of ETH had dropped to $1,842 after experiencing a loss of 1.2% on the day. Over the course of the weekend, the value of the asset momentarily approached $2,000; however, there was significant resistance at that level. The price of ETH has dropped by 13.4% since it reached its all-time high in 2023 and is currently down 62.2% from its previous peak. In the very short-term time frame, support can be found slightly above $1,800 at the moment.
