The big time has here. On April 12, the Ethereum network will receive the much-anticipated Shapella upgrade at block 6209536. Analysts and traders are buzzing over the phased release of staked Ethereum. Some are concerned that a large amount of ETH will be sold to markets, but Glassnode, an on-chain analytics startup, argues differently.
On April 11, the company said that just a small portion of the Ethereum staked would be sold following the update. “We estimate that 170k ETH will be sold after the Shanghai upgrade.”
Only 100,000 ETH of the total accrued prizes were expected to be taken and sold. “Additionally, we anticipate seeing twice as many validators exiting, but only a limited amount of stake will be released per day,” it added.
According to Glassnode, just a fraction of that value, roughly 70,000 ETH, will become liquid. The total sum is less than 1% of the overall staked amount of 18 million ETH.
According to the analytics group, even in the most extreme event, the impact on Ethereum prices will be “acceptable.”
It was noticed that centralized exchanges and liquid staking platforms account for more than two-thirds of all ETH staked. Lido is presently the most dominant, with 5.9 million ETH staked and a roughly one-third stake. However, it was discovered that relatively few staking providers had withdrawn their validators.
It further stated that roughly half of all Ethereum staked was profitable. Furthermore, the realized price of all deposits is currently $2,136, while the realized price of ETH is $1,403.
The upgrade also allows for partial and full withdrawals. Partially withdrawing reduces the balance to 32 ETH by removing the validator’s staking incentives. Full withdrawals disable the validator and remove the full staked balance.
Furthermore, early investors have accrued rewards for more than two years, so they might be large. Glassnode has accumulated Ethereum staking rewards ahead of the Shapella upgrade. Based on the existing departure queue, Glassnode anticipated that “at least 45,098 ETH will exit the Beacon Chain between April 12 and April 14.”
“Based on our analysis, the impact on the Ethereum economy is expected to be a lot less dramatic than many have painted it to be,” Glassnode concluded. ETH prices fell 3% on the day, and it was trading at $1,868 at the time of writing.
