ETH Withdrawals Surge Past 1M Tokens Valued at $2.1B After Shanghai

• Over one million ETH have been withdrawn after the Shanghai upgrade.
• The withdrawal surge is attributed to regulatory issues with Kraken and Huobi.
• Ethereum’s successful hard fork has caused its token price to soar above $2k.

According to data from a tracking platform, the total number of Ethereum (ETH) withdrawn after the Shanghai upgrade has exceeded one million tokens, with a market value above $2.1 billion. Additionally, 651 units of ETH are waiting to be withdrawn, while only 373.39k ETH coins have been deposited so far.

Colin Wu, a well-known Chinese crypto reporter, claimed the enormous withdrawal volume was due to regulatory factors of the Kraken crypto exchange and Huobi Global’s shareholders’ change.

Last week, the Ethereum blockchain completed the Shanghai hard fork, the protocol’s first significant upgrade since “The Merge” in 2022. Its primary purpose is to allow stakers and validators to withdraw their staked ETH from the Beacon Chain for the first time.

According to official documentation, 17.3 million ETH are staked on the Beacon Chain, worth over $36.3 billion. Crypto analysts have argued that while the long-term effects of this upgrade are favorable for the market, there may be short-term negative impacts.

“It should get very interesting as people anticipate the outcome of such a big unlock,” an influencer named Crypto Tony wrote early this month, hinting at a possible massive dump on the market.

However, following the hard fork’s successful completion, the Ethereum token’s price soared above $2k, one of its highest values this year. ETH’s seven-day cumulative growth stands above 13%, according to data from the market tracking site, CoinMarketCap. And in the last 24 hours, crypto traders exchanged ether tokens worth nearly $9 billion.