It has been Ethereum since September of last year (ETH) network based entirely on Proof of Stake (PoS). That means that the network is kept safe by people who do crypto staking. When it became possible to stop staking in April, it raised fears that many investors would withdraw their coins. But nothing could be further from the truth, because the number of coins that have been locked has increased considerably again.
Ethereum strike reaches milestone
That appears from on chain data on Dune, compiled by the analyst hildobby. At the time of writing, over 23.8 million ETH is part of the staking protocol, or about 20% of all outstanding ETH tokens. In addition, this percentage has almost doubled since the April Shapella upgrade. At that time, this amount was slightly above 10 million ETH, or slightly more than 10% of the outstanding coins.
20% of ETH supply stakedhttps://t.co/EkK4n7QpXS pic.twitter.com/Diw9o238e8
— hildobby (@hildobby_) July 10, 2023
Like many developers, the market was concerned that the Shapella upgrade would spark a wave of sales. This was also the case, because strikers who wanted to stop caused a huge queue. Still, relatively speaking, it was not too bad, because it only involved 5% of all coins in the associated smart contract. Shortly after, the number of tokens in the staking contract grew again.
The Shapella upgrade is a portmanteau of the names Shanghai and Capella, two upgrades that were closely related and happened at the same time.
Ethereum source of controversy
Ethereum was one of the most popular coins both last year and this year. This year it has even risen slightly faster than bitcoin. Yet there are also sources of controversy. For example, activists carried out an attack on the network last week. This only lasted 12 seconds, but it well illustrated that the network is relatively vulnerable due to all the censorship.
The majority of Ethereum validators use a plugin that meets the requirements of the US government. This means that they do not process transactions from parties on the US sanctions list. You should think of transactions from Tornado Cash and from Russia. Despite this, investors continue to have confidence in the network and even commit more ETH to the protocol.