The amount of Ethereum that’s currently staked within the network is near an all-time high as rewards for locking up ETH are on the rise—and just days before spot Ethereum ETFs are expected to begin trading in the United States.
More than 33.2 million Ethereum tokens (worth roughly $114 billion) were staked as of publication time, representing about 28% of the total ETH supply, Coinbase’s data shows. The growth in the total value of staked ETH coincides with a nearly 5% increase in the estimated reward rate for staking ETH over the past month.
Staking Ethereum is the process by which ETH is locked up for a specified period of time to secure the proof-of-stake network. In exchange for locking up their tokens, ETH holders earn rewards from the network. The current estimated reward rate of Ethereum is 2.60%, according to Coinbase. That’s up from a 2.48% reward rate last month.
Ethereum staking has been on a steady rise, breaking the 30 million ETH mark back in February and hitting an all-time high mark above 33.4 million on July 12, per on-chain data curated by Dune.
While staking rewards have drawn many Ethereum holders to lock up their tokens, the massive amount of staked ETH has drawn centralization concerns, given how much being staked to the likes of Lido—which commands 29% of all staked ETH—as well as Coinbase and others.
Ethereum is trading at $3,425, down 1% in the past 24 hours.
Ethereum ETFs near
Ethereum holders’ growing interest in staking also comes as investors expect a swath of spot Ethereum ETFs to receive final approval to launch in the U.S. this month.
As Decrypt previously reported, spot Ethereum ETFs are likely to get a green light from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to begin trading on July 23, according to sources familiar with the matter. That’s just seven months after their Bitcoin equivalents clinched approval to begin trading.
However, when spot Ethereum ETFs do launch, inflows could be modest, some analysts predict. A recent research report from Citi shows that spot ETH ETFs in the U.S. could receive just 30% to 35% of the net inflows their spot bitcoin counterparts received, with distribution skewed to the downside.
Still, a rush of investor dollars into funds holding the token could be a boon for ETH holders. Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan said Wednesday that ETH's price could hit $5,000—a new all-time high—following the expected launches of several spot Ethereum ETFs later this month.
Edited by Andrew Hayward