Ether hits 11-month high as post-Shapella withdrawals pass 1M ETH

cointelegraph.com:

Over 1 million Ether (ETH) worth $2.1 billion has now been withdrawn from Ethereum’s Beacon Chain within the first four days of the Shapella hard fork and Ether has pushed over $2,100 for the first time in 11 months.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 being 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 explained to Cointelegraph that many validators are re-staking Ether back onto the Beacon Chain:

Given the current macroeconomic climate, Feeney explained 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:

Markus Thielen, the head of research at digital asset platform Matrixport explained to Cointelegraph that the closure of crypto exchange Kraken’s staking services may have contributed to the higher figures:

Thielen said he expects a large amount of un-staked Ether from Kraken to be “recycled” back into the Beacon Chain through other entities.

While Thielen anticipates the positive price action to cool off this week amid increased selling pressure, he thinks Shapella will ultimately attract more institutional