Shapella, a week later: Deposits start outpacing withdrawals as Ethereum's burn-rate increases

Quick Take

  • Ethereum’s Shapella upgrade has been live for nearly a week.
  • Recently, staking deposits have started outpacing withdrawals.
  • The amount of ether being burned has also increased.

Almost one week after Ethereum's Shapella upgrade went live — effectively allowing for the withdrawal of staked ether for the first time — deposits have begun to outpace withdrawals and the rate at which ether is burned has increased substantially.

Yesterday, approximately 91,500 ETH was deposited and 64,830 ETH was withdrawn, creating a positive net staking balance of roughly 26,680 ETH ($53 million), according to data from token.unlocks.

This follows the first positive net staking flow since Shapella went live. The Block reported yesterday that, over the previous 24 hours, 95,000 ETH was deposited against 27,000 ETH withdrawn.

Since Shapella activated, staking APR has decreased alongside a general increase in the price of ether. Source: token.unlocks

The overall net staking balance since Shapella is still largely negative, however.

Since the upgrade was activated shortly before 6:30 p.m. EDT on April 12 at block height 6209536, approximately 1.08 million ETH has been withdrawn. Over the same period, less than 600,000 ETH was deposited — creating a negative net staking balance of roughly 486,150 ETH.

Some 945,370 ETH (worth about $1.9 billion) is still queued up for withdrawal.

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The price of ether, meanwhile, has fallen back below $2,000 — in line with the broader crypto market — after spending much of its post-Shapella life around $2,100.

Ethereum is burning more ether since Shapella

Over the last seven days — almost mirroring the time since Shapella was activated — the ether supply has decreased at a rate of 0.502% per year, according to ultrasound.money. This nearly doubled the burn rate of the past 30 days and is significantly more than the post-Merge burn rate of 0.134% per year.

Ethereum has burned roughly 11,600 ETH in the last seven days, worth roughly $23 million at current prices.

Ethereum has been burning ether at an increased rate over the past seven days. Source: ultrasound.money

Ethereum began burning ether 621 days ago when it implemented Ethereum Improvement Proposal 1559, which burns a portion of fees generated through transactions. 


© 2023 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

About Author

Adam is the managing editor for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. He is based in central Europe and was a managing editor and podcast host at the crypto exchange OKX's former research arm, OKX Insights. Before that, he co-founded BeInCrypto.com, which he elevated into one of the leading crypto media brands at its peak as the editor-in-chief. Earlier, he served as the editor-in-chief at Bitcoinist.com. Before joining the blockchain and crypto industry, he worked for Looper.com, Grunge.com and SVG.com. He tweets via @XBT002 and can be emailed at [email protected].

Editor

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