The Ethereum community is celebrating the successful ‘Shapella’ upgrade that enabled users and validators to withdraw their staked Ether, with almost $2 billion worth of withdrawals now pending.
Shapella is what Ethereum developers have been calling the recent double upgrade of the network, which hard-forked without a hitch on April 12. The word Shapella is a mix between the terms Shanghai and Capella – two separate upgrades which happened simultaneously.
The Shapella hard fork implemented Ethereum Improvement Proposal 4895, enabling users and validators to withdraw their staked Ether on the network. The upgrade marks a milestone event for Ethereum, following the implementation of EIP-1559 and The Merge.
With Ether withdrawals now enabled from the Beacon Chain staking pool, the network has fully transitioned to a Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism.
Here are a few statistics almost 24 hours after the upgrade was completed:
Shapella Upgrade and Pending Withdrawals
- At the time of writing, approximately 20 hours after the upgrade, over $1.84 billion in Ether is pending withdrawal.
- A total of 920,180 Ether is pending withdrawal at a rate of around 150,000 Ether ($300 million) per day.
- Validators looking to fully exit the chain could be looking at a wait of up to 14 days to get their Ether back, according to the latest reports.
Validator Rewards and Price Impact
- On-chain estimates predicted more than 1.1 million Ether, worth more than $2 billion, in accrued validator rewards could be claimed following Shapella.
- Glassnode estimated that validators might sell 170,000 ETH ($317 million) in the first seven days after Shapella, with an “acceptable impact” on Ether’s price. This remains to be seen.
Staking and Withdrawals After Shapella
- Currently, 17.42 million Ether is staked, accounting for 15.49% of the total Ether supply.
- Since the Shanghai upgrade, the net staking balance has decreased by 83,000 Ether ($162 million), with approximately 153,000 ETH withdrawn and about 70,000 ETH deposited.
Ether Price Following the Shapella Upgrade
- After the Shapella upgrade, the price of Ether hovered above $1,900.
- Ether’s price has since increased to around $2,000 per coin.
Ethereum’s Shapella upgrade marks a significant milestone for the network, allowing users and validators to withdraw their staked Ether. As billions of dollars in transactions are now pending, the crypto community eagerly awaits the impact of these withdrawals on Ether’s price and the overall network.
