The Ethereum Shapella upgrade was completed on Wednesday, April 12, and for the first time since the Beacon Chain contract launched, stakeholders could now make withdrawals for their staked ETH. However, the rate at which stakeholders are now requesting to withdraw their ETH has accelerated in less than 24 hours and the amount of ETH expected to be put back into circulation each day continues to rise.
Almost 90,000 ETH is expected to be released daily
Since the Shapella update was implemented, the number of ETH withdrawal requests has grown rapidly. In less than 24 hours, there are already more than 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 calculated the estimated amount of ETH to be released to the market daily at around 88,000 ETH. This means that over $330 million worth of liquid ETH could flow into the market each day, which isn’t huge in the grand scheme of things.
Over $1.6 billion in withdraw requests since Shapella upgrade | Source: Token Unlocks
Also, the forecasts for withdrawals have been a bit off as less than 3% of the total ETH staked has been requested to withdraw. More than anything, the numbers show that stakeholders are actually willing to leave their ETH locked up for longer as they earn more rewards.
Ethereum shakes the bears
Despite expectations that the withdrawals will put significant selling pressure on the ETH price and cause a drop, the opposite has occurred. ETH price has rallied over the past day, rising around 7% during this time as it prepares to take on the coveted resistance at $2,000.
ETH gearing up to test $2,000 | Source: ETHUSD on TradingView.com
The digital asset is also green on the weekly chart with gains of 5.57%, pointing to further bullish sentiment among investors. Instead of a decline, Ethereum’s trading volume grew by more than 55% and now stands at $13.2 billion. This is evidence of increased interest in the asset after the Shapella update.
As long as ETH maintains its current momentum, the digital asset is likely to clear the $2,000 resistance before the trading day is out. A move above this level would solidify the asset’s entry into the bullish rally and could lead to a peak above $2,500 before correcting lower.
However, ETH is still trending at $1,987 at the time of writing. It is trading well above its 50 and 100 day moving averages, solidifying its bullish momentum in both the short and medium term.