The Shanghai upgrade of Ethereum, which went live on Thursday, has enabled those who have staked their ether to begin the unstaking process. According to on-chain data tracked by Rated network explorer, Kraken is leading the exit queue breakdown with 62% of the validators moving to unstake. At the time of writing, the number of validators in the queue has surpassed 15,000, as reported by Parsec Finance. Kraken’s dominance in the unstaking queue is largely expected, given the legal issues it has faced with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In February, the SEC determined Kraken’s staking offerings to be unregistered securities, resulting in a $30 million settlement.
Despite the Shanghai upgrade, the Ethereum protocol and its eponymous token have been minimally affected. Nansen.ai data indicates that only a -0.25% change in staked ether has been withdrawn. CryptoQuant had previously noted in March that 60% of all staked ether was held at a loss, which suggested that selling pressure on ether would be low after the upgrade. According to Andrew Thurman of Nansen, the majority of withdrawals are addresses withdrawing their rewards, not their rewards and full stake. Recent data from Nansen shows that the average price of staked ether on Lido is worth $2,552, and Lido makes up around 31% of all ether deposits.
Data also shows that 4.35 million ether, or about 24%, is staked at above $3,000, a price point not seen since April 2022. At the time of writing, ether is currently trading for $1,916, according to CoinDesk pricing data.
