The Ethereum Shapella upgrade was completed on Wednesday, April 12, and for the first time since the Beacon Chain contract was launched, stakers were now able to place withdrawals for their staked ETH. The rate at which stakers are now requesting to withdraw their ETH has, however, accelerated in less than 24 hours and the amount of ETH expected to be released back into circulation each day keeps rising.
Almost 90,000 ETH Expected To Be Released Daily
Since the Shapella upgrade was implemented, the number of ETH requests for withdrawal has grown rapidly. In less than 24 hours, there are already over 822,000 ETH requested for withdrawal, which translates to a value of more than $1.6 billion at current prices.
Given this value, Token Unlocks put the estimated amount of ETH to be released into the market daily at around 88,000 ETH. This means that over $330 million in liquid ETH could be flowing into the market each day, which is not enormous in the grand scheme of things.
Over $1.6 billion in withdraw requests since Shapella upgrade | Source: Token Unlocks
Also, forecasts for the withdrawals have been a bit off since less than 3% of the total staked ETH has been requested for withdrawal. More than anything, the figures show that stakers are actually willing to leave their ETH locked for even longer as they reap more rewards.
Ethereum Shakes Off Bears
Despite expectations that withdrawals will put significant sell pressure on the price of ETH and trigger a decline, the opposite has been the case. ETH’s price has rallied over the past day, rising by around 7% during this time as it readies to take on the coveted $2,000 resistance.
ETH gearing up to test $2,000 | Source: ETHUSD on TradingView.com
The digital asset is also green on the weekly chart with 5.57% gains which points to a heightened bullish sentiment among investors. Instead of a decline, Ethereum’s trading volume grew by over 55% and is now sitting at $13.2 billion. This is evidence of the increased interest in the asset following the Shapella upgrade.
As long as ETH maintains its current momentum, the digital asset will likely clear the $2,000 resistance before the trading day is over. A move above this level would solidify the asset’s entry into the bull rally and could lead to a peak above $2,500 before correcting downward.
Nevertheless, ETH is still trending at $1,987 at the time of this writing. It is trading well above its 50-day and 100-day moving averages, which solidifies its bullish momentum for both the short and the mid-term.