Yesterday, Ethereum (ETH) held on exchange hit four-year low after record staking numbers on Ethereum 2.0 (the incoming network upgrade, recently renamed “Consensus layer”).
Centralized exchanges tracked by analytics platform Glassnode currently hold 19.09 million Ethereum, a metric which was just under 20 million in July 2018, suggests Glassnode Data.
Additionally, Ethereum held on exchange fell 10% from 21.191 million in the last five days.
These data points have also been firmed up with high outflows from exchanges recently.
Currency outflows hit their highest level in 13 months, as reported by Glassnode, indicating less interest among investors to trade or hold the asset on centralized exchanges.
Chainalysis, a blockchain monitoring and reporting platform, reported Similar results: “The change in ETH held on exchanges saw the largest one-day decline in 202 days, falling from 432.84k ETH to 249.58k ETH.”
Growing Ethereum shed
The sharp drop in Ethereum held on exchanges is likely the result of the growing amount of Ethereum being staked as the network prepares for its biggest upgrade yet.
Unlike the current Ethereum network, Ethereum 2.0 is a proof-of-stake (PoS) network where validators stake 32 Ethereum to verify network integrity.
Ethereum staked on the Beacon Chain, a PoS version of Ethereum launched in December 2020, has also risen steadily over the past few days.
The merger is scheduled for September 19an event that will see the current mainnet merge with the PoS version, and today, the total amount wagered is currently at 13.14 million via a total of more than 410,000 different validators.
Amid these bullish FX flows, Ethereum jumped 8.6% in the last 24 hours and traded at around $1,638.
The second largest cryptocurrency with a market capitalization of almost $199 billion, has risen over 34.5% over the past week.
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