As Ethereum’s much-anticipated Shapella upgrade approaches, the majority of network users do not plan to utilize the protocol change immediately. According to IntoTheBlock data, only 0.6% of Ethereum validators intend to withdraw their stake following the hard fork.
- IntoTheBlock tweeted on Tuesday that only 3,614 out of 562,717 Ethereum validators had opted to withdraw their stake as of April 10.
- The upgrade will occur at block 6209536, at 10:27:35 PM UTC on April 12.
- Shapella is a follow-up to the Merge update in September 2022, which changed Ethereum’s consensus mechanism from proof of work to proof of stake, a more energy-efficient approach. Shapella combines the Shanghai and Copella upgrades, allowing ETH staking withdrawals on Ethereum’s execution and consensus layers.
- This is the first time users can withdraw their stake since Ethereum’s beacon chain launch in December 2020.
- Over 18.14 million ETH, equivalent to over $34.7 billion, is currently staked on Ethereum, or roughly 15% of all ETH in circulation.
- Coinbase predicted a high volume of withdrawal requests that could take “weeks to months” to complete once the update is live, which could trigger a market dump.
- Following the Merge in September, Ethereum’s price initially increased before dropping sharply.
