Over 1M Ether Withdrawn After Shapella Fails to Dent Risk Appetite

Ether (ETH) withdrawals crossed 1 million tokens on Sunday night even as prices touched an 11-month high, quashing hopes of recently implemented Shapella upgrade being a bearish event for Ethereum's native token, as some feared.

The tokens were withdrawn from nearly 477,805 transactions that are happening every few seconds, data from the Beacon Chain tracker shows.

Shappella – a portmanteau of Shanghai and Capella, two major Ethereum network upgrades that occured simultaneously on April 12 – now allows investors to withdraw their ether staked on the Ethereum blockchain at will. Users were previously unable to withdraw staked ether.

Some analysts previously opined the event could be bearish for ether prices. A small faction of the crypto market said it could be a “sell the news” event and the likes of JP Morgan foresaw selling from staked ether balances belonging to “troubled entities.” Elsewhere, Bank of America said fundamental issues for the broader Ethereum network lingered on, evening out bullish impetus from Shapella.

Selling, however, has remained tepid so far, with users restaking the ether withdrawn or sending the same to exchanges to capture other market opportunities instead of liquidating the same for U.S. dollars or stablecoins.

Data from on-chain tool Lookonchain shows that over 19,000 ether from just three wallets were withdrawn and quickly restaked back on Ethereum – likely as a move from holders simply testing if the feature worked smoothly.

Another batch of wallets withdrew and restaked over 34,000 ether, valued over $72 million at current prices.

Some addresses, such as "0x08De,” withdrew over 50,000 ether and deposited over 5,000 ether on crypto exchange Hubby's Ethereum staking tool. The remaining 45,000 ether was deposited on spot wallets, but data did not immediately suggest if 0x08De intended to sell the holdings.

Ether remains firm over the $2,000 mark during the Asian trading hours on Monday.