Updated: 1 year
• Data from a research firm has revealed that nearly 80% of the Ethereum staking rewards have been withdrawn since the Shanghai upgrade.
• This upgrade enabled investors to withdraw their locked ETH and staking rewards, leading to 1.5 million ETH ($2.8 billion) withdrawn since 12 April 2023.
• Of these withdrawals, only one-third were full withdrawals involving 32 ETH stack – the other two-thirds involved only exit of staking rewards.
Ethereum Shanghai Upgrade
In September 2022, Ethereum finally switched towards a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism. In such a system, a consensus is met on the blockchain through stakers and not miners. Anyone can become a staker if they deposit 32 ETH into the staking contract. While the mainnet only transitioned to the PoS system in September 2022, as mentioned earlier, the staking contract had already been live on a test blockchain since November 2020. This means holders have been depositing into the contract and earning staking rewards since then.
Withdrawal Restriction Lifted
Until recently there was an attached limitation in this contract all those years which prevented investors from withdrawing their coins from it. The recent Shanghai upgrade however enabled them to do so by allowing them to withdraw their locked ETH and staking rewards that had piled up on the contract all these years. According to K33 Research (formerly Arcane Research), nearly 1.5 million ETH ($2.8 billion) has been withdrawn since 12 April 2023 when this hard fork occurred.
Types of Withdrawals
The “full withdrawals” here refer to withdrawals involving the complete exit of the 32 ETH stack that validator had put into it at first while other two-thirds involved only exit of their respective staking rewards accumulated over time with no involvement of original deposit amount .
Pie Chart Analysis
The pie chart below shows these withdrawals’ division between full and reward-only ones: The withdrawals that have taken place since the Shanghai upgrade | Source: K33 Research
Conclusion
The Shanghai upgrade has allowed investors to take out their locked ETH and accumulated earnings from Ethereum’s PoS system unlocking its potential for further growth in terms of user base and adoption rate amongst crypto enthusiasts as well as financial institutions alike globally..