Ethereum (ETH) prices are roughly 18% from June 2023 lows at the back of increasing ETH staking and massive withdrawals from centralized cryptocurrency exchanges like Binance and Coinbase.
As of June 25, ETH is changing hands at $1,912, steady in the past two days but trading within a bullish formation following sharp gains this week.
Further buoyed by fundamental factors, traders are confident that there could be more price gains above immediate liquidation levels, including April 2023 highs at $2,100.
More ethereum staked
According to Etherscan data, there have been over 216,000 transactions that have seen users stake over 25.5 million ETH worth over $48.9 billion at spot rates. Notably, this trajectory has been steadily rising, indicating support from the broader Ethereum community and confidence in the state of the network.
Ethereum recently shifted from a proof-of-work to a proof-of-stake consensus algorithm, meaning instead of miners who need energy-intensive gear to confirm transactions and secure the network, the blockchain depends on validators.
These validators have to stake at least 32 ETH in their node and plug into the network for a chance to validate a block of transaction and receive blockchain rewards of 2 ETH. The Ethereum network dispenses block rewards and block fees on average every 12 seconds.
On average, on-chain data shows that validators have staked 32.18 ETH, and there are over 630k validators as of writing on June 25.
As the number of ETH staked, the number has been rising steadily over the months, even after the latest Ethereum Shapella upgrade.
In this hard fork, Ethereum permitted validators to unlock their coins for the first time since the launch of phase 1 of the Beacon Chain in late 2020.
While there were expectations of price dumps as some validators unlocked their coins and sold for cash, realizing capital gains, the number of Ethereum stakers has been increasing, further strengthening the network.
ETH withdrawals from centralized cryptocurrency exchanges
With increasing ETH stakers, extra supply is moped from the circulating supply. Trader confidence is further fanned by increasing withdrawals from centralized exchanges. According to Glassnode, the amount of ETH held in centralized exchanges is at record lows.
This follows lawsuits by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) against Binance and Coinbase, two of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges by client count and trading volumes. As a result, some crypto holders were spooked, withdrawing their coins from these exchanges and to non-custodial wallets which they control.
Withdrawals of coins from crypto exchanges are often interpreted as bullish. While Coinbase and Binance have stated that they will defend themselves against the regulator, how ETH prices will react in future sessions is still to be seen.
