Ethereum Held on Exchanges Plunges as Stakers Prepare for The Merge

Yesterday, Ethereum (ETH) held on exchanges hit a four-year low following record staking figures on Ethereum 2.0 (the network’s incoming upgrade, recently rebranded to “Consensus Layer”).

Centralized exchanges tracked by the analytics platform Glassnode currently hold 19.09 million Ethereum, a metric which was just under 20 million in July 2018, suggests Glassnode data.

Moreover, Ethereum held on exchanges has plummeted by 10% from 21.191 million over the past five days.

These data points were also firmed up with high outflows from exchanges recently.

Exchange outflows hit a 13-month high, as reported by Glassnode, indicating less interest among investors to trade or hold the asset on centralized exchanges.

Chainalysis, a blockchain tracking and reporting platform, reported similar findings: “The change in ETH held on exchanges experienced the largest one-day decrease in 202 days, decreasing by 432.84k ETH to 249.58k ETH.”

Growing Ethereum staking

The sharp decline in Ethereum held across exchanges is likely a result of the growing amount of Ethereum 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 the network's integrity.

Ethereum staked on the Beacon Chain, a PoS version of Ethereum that launched in December 2020, has been steadily increasing over the past few days too. 

The merge is expected on September 19, an event which will see the current mainnet merge with the PoS version, and today the total amount staked currently sits at 13.14 million via a total of more than 410,000 different validators.

Amid these bullish exchange flows, Ethereum has jumped 8.6% in the past 24 hours and traded at around $1,638.

The second-largest cryptocurrency with a market capitalization of nearly $199 billion, has rallied over 34.5% over the past week.