Ethereum Staking in Trouble? Regulations and Shapella Upgrade Reduce Deposits”

Ethereum’s (ETH) price has been on a winning streak for the past four months ahead of the Shanghai Upgrade. However, the upward momentum is at risk of diminishing in the next few weeks. As the digital asset revisits last August’s high of around $2,030, the ETH price is likely to rebound and follow a new falling trend. Moreover, the 50 and 200 WMAs are about to form a dreaded death cross.

The last time a weekly death cross occurred in the Ethereum market was back in mid-2019, which resulted in almost a 50 percent decline in subsequent months. If history repeats itself, you can expect the Ethereum price to revisit last June’s low of around $1000, should the weekly death cross materialize.

Ethereum Deposits Ahead of Shanghai Upgrade 

Ethereum price has, however, been significantly bolstered by the staking program in the beacon chain network. Already, slightly over 18 million ETH out of 120,438,691 Ethers in circulating supply have been staked by about 563k validators. As a result, the selling pressure on the Ethereum network has been minimized.

Meanwhile, a recent study conducted by on-chain analytics platform Glassnode shows that Ethereum staking activities have significantly slumped in the recent past due to global regulatory pressures and the upcoming Shanghai upgrade.

Reportedly, Lido DAO (LDO) liquid staking program has been the favorite among Ethereum investors.

“Deposit trends by staking providers have exhibited a clear shift over time with Kraken, Binance and Coinbase jousting for deposit allocations across the Beacon Chain’s early days. As the dust settled between the three giants, it was Lido who emerged victorious, continuing to dominate deposit inflows as of present,” Glassnode noted.

Regulatory Pressures

Ethereum staking activities have been affected by regulatory scrutiny, particularly for the United States SEC. For instance, the SEC slapped Kraken with a $30 million fine for providing an unregistered staking-as-a-service program. Additionally, the SEC has issued Coinbase Global with a Wells notice on its staking program, which is likely to proceed as a lawsuit.