Ethereum after the Shanghai (Shapella) update. Analysis of the behavior of Ethereum whales after the distribution of coins

In fact, the full transition of Ethereum to staking took place after the launch of the Shanghai update, not The Merge. Since only on April 12, users who “frozen” (staken) their Ethers back in the fall, got the opportunity to withdraw (unstake) them.

In fact, the update consisted of two parts: Shanghai and Shapella. The first one was interesting for stakers, since its main purpose was to “unfreeze ETH”, and the second one is just for developers. We talked in detail about what the update was technically like in a previous article.

There was a lot of talk before the Shanghai update that this would drop the price of Ethereum as it would unlock a large amount of staked coins. In the same material of the previous article, we analyzed the behavior of large validators and stakers and came to the conclusion that this will not happen. Were we right?

In this article, we will talk about how the full transition of Ethereum to staking went – Shanghai (Shapella) update, analyze on-chain metrics, see what major players and Ethereum stakers are doing now, and guess where liquidity will flow. Go!

Was switching to staking a good idea?

Thanks to the transition to staking, Ethereum not only stopped consuming a huge amount of electricity for transactions, but also strengthened the financial model of its token.

Since launch The Merge the total supply of ETH has decreased by 100,000 coins, to be exact by 103,092 ETH. (That is, so much Ether was burned on commissions)

If the hard fork had not been implemented and Ethereum was still mined by miners, then its number would have increased by more than 2.52 million coins today. It’s growth on 3.53% in year. Instead, Ether becomes a deflationary asset. His offer after The Merge is reduced by 0.144% in year. According to ethereum.money analysts. since the transition to PoS, ether has been removed from circulation for $1.2 billion

But in addition to the economics of a token, its fundamental and technical value is very important in the analysis of cryptocurrencies. And who understands it better than smart money, who are constantly in the market and increase their deposits from year to year thanks to knowledge of advanced technologies and, possibly, possession of insider information.

The behavior of major players after the ETH split

After the Ethereum Shanghai update, as we expected, ETH deposits began to grow faster than before.

Let’s see how smart money behaves. In this context, these are large Ethereum holders who are professional market participants. Now you will understand why.

Here is a table with the wallets of the largest Ethereum stakers through LSD (liquid staking derivatives, we talked about it in detail in this material).

Let’s take a look at one of these guys. By the way, here are his ETH entry points. average price $1435. Remind me of the current $1986.

And here he puts 8 992 ETH to staking through Staked.

However, there are those who withdraw funds. And here it is important to understand where they flow. We’ll talk about this a little later.

Whale “0x2E5f” withdrew a total of 25,855 ETH, which is about $54 million. Here is a link to his wallet and proofs:

Then he translated 22000ETH (approximately $46 million) on Binance and received 13.26 million USDT from the stock exchange. The man lives well. Proof.

Anyway. Now let’s summarize and analyze all wallet observations.

Total de-staking since the Shanghai update 1 024 099 ETH, for about $2.15 billion.

Here are the TOP 15 withdrawal wallets:

Here are the TOP 20 addresses by deposits:

Everything was steaked again 158,592 ETH ($333 million) And re-steaked of them 34,198 ETH ($72 million)

It is important that among them 13 addresses, who after withdrawing (and they had large withdrawals) put part of their funds back into staking. Proofs and wallet addresses for the studio:

Address “0xa8c6”

He withdrew 8,961 ETH and transferred it to the address “0xD100” for restaking.

Address “0x4B5E”

Withdrew 5,434 ETH and re-bet 5,408 ETH.

Well, and so on, you can track all other wallets yourself through etherscan. By the way, it is very interesting to keep track of such wallets, they often make very interesting decisions that can help you better understand the market movement.

This behavior of wallets may indicate confidence in the Ethereum network and the expectation of large players from ETH in the medium and long term.

Yes, there was much more Ether withdrawn than deposited again. As big players there and in general. However, in this context, it is important to answer one more question: Where does liquidity flow from Ethereum? After all, if liquidity goes to projects that are also built on the Ethereum network (and this includes Arbitrum, Polygon, and many others). And smart money also knows the answer to this question. We are talking about this in the next article on VC.ru.

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