How the Ethereum Shanghai Upgrade Could Impact the Price of ETHMore than 18 million ETH—wEthereum will conclude its two-year transition to proof of stake this week with the launch of the Shanghai upgrade on April 12. The move will introduce a number of technical improvements to the network, but most Ethereum traders only care about one thing: staking withdrawals.
With more than 18 million ETH—worth roughly $34 billion—locked up on the Ethereum network set to finally become available to validators, investors are understandably uneasy about what this might mean for the price of the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap.orth roughly $34 billion—is set to unlock after Shanghai. Here's what analysts are expecting.
Andrew Thurman, a data analyst at Nansen, told Decrypt that in his view price impact in the short-term, however, will be “a little bit more muted” than community expectations suggest. Also known by its consensus name Capella, Shanghai ends the two-year lockup period on staked ETH and its corresponding rewards. If all goes well, Ethereum stakers will be able to begin sending withdrawal requests to the network immediately after Shanghai goes live—but that doesn’t mean users will receive the funds on day one. Because of the anticipated length of the withdrawal queue, holders may have to wait weeks to months to retrieve their assets.
“With many speculating whether this event will cause a massive sell-off in price, it’s important to realize that the withdrawal queue only allows a limited set of requests per day (115,200),” Guilhem Chaumont, CEO and co-founder of Flowdesk, said in a statement shared with Decrypt. “So while there may be sustained downward pressure on the price, unstaking is not likely to cause a sharp, sudden dip.”
Individual stakers, those who were able to pony up at least 32 ETH (worth approximately $60,000 at today’s prices) themselves, can expect to wait at least two to three days to have withdrawal requests processed, Ethereum developers previously explained to Decrypt. Those staking through pools and other service providers, such as Lido or crypto exchanges like Coinbase, may have to wait several weeks or even months to withdraw their funds.
And besides the wait times, others point out that the availability of liquid staking services such as Lido means that traders who have wanted the ability to trade staked ETH have been able to do so even before Shanghai.
“Most people have been able to sell [staked ETH] for quite some time, because the majority of ETH is being staked through platforms with liquid staking tokens, like Lido or Rocket Pool,” Jacob Cantele, head of product at Ethereum layer-2 Mantle, previously told Decrypt. “So I don't actually think [Shanghai] represents a major shift in the economics of Ethereum.”