Ethereum has been a proof of stake chain for more than a year now. As a reminder the start of the transition to proof of stake started back in December 2020. The staking chain was launched then to run in parallel with the proof of work chain. Staking was then enabled, but withdrawals from staking were not. The proof of work chain and the proof of stake merged in September 2022, almost two years after the initial phase. Finaly unstaking was enabled in March 2023, when everyone who had staked on the PoS chain could unstake if they wish so.
How is staking Ethereum going these days? After everything was finished and time has passed. Are more users unstaking or maybe staking now? It’s been nine months since the unstaking is live so let’s check it out.
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Here we e will be looking at:
- Staked Ethereum by date
- Staked VS Unstaked ETH since the Shanghai update
- Share of staked ETH
- Number of validators
- Top staking pools
The data presented here is mostly gathered from Dune Analytics and Ethscan.
Staked Ethereum by Date
Here is the chart.
This is the amount of staked ETH since the launch of the Beacon chain and the option for staking Ethereum in November 2020.
We can see a constant growth in the amount of ETH staked and, on some occasions, a sharp increase. We can notice that in the last few months there is an uptrend. At the moment of writing this there is 28.8M ETH staked.
If we zoom in 2023 we get this:
Here we can notice some ups and downs back in March and then a strong growth in May 2023. The unstaking option has caused more Ethereum to be staked than unstaked. Probably users felt more comfortable staking now knowing that they can unstake at any moment if needed.
At the moment of activating the Shanghai update there was 18M ETH staked and now there is more than 28.8M. A 10M more ETH staked after the update.
Deposits VS Withdrawals Since the Shanghai Update
If take a look at the daily deposits vs withdrawals since the update we get this:
Most of the days are in positive, meaning that more ETH is being staked in general that ustaked, even with the ustaking option enabled. There are few big unstaking events in April, where more than 100k ETH was unstaked in a day. A few more have happened just recently in the last months, but those are rare occasions.
Share of Staked Ethereum
What is the share of staked Ethereum? Here is the historical trend.
We can notice that the staking was activated later in the Ethereum lifecycle and since recently it has started to gather more momentum. It’s worth noting that since last year Ethereum cut their inflation down as well and is deflationary in the last period. What this means that the ETH issuance is lowered, and at the same time the staking is locking more ETH, basically lowering the liquid supply from both ends.
The liquid Ethereum supply looks like this:
We can see the drop in the liquid ETH supply, from 113M at the top in 2020 to 91M now. It seems that there is finally some slow down in the amount of ETH staked. Will see where the balance is found. Staking provides APR, but if more ETH is staked this APR goes down. Also, the APR for staking depends on the network activity and the fees paid by users.
The current share of staked ETH looks like this:
When compared to the total ETH supply that is around 120M now, the 28.8M staked ETH represents a 24% of the supply. This number have kept growing in the last year.
Number of Validators
Here is the chart.
The number of validators has also continued to grow. At the moment there is close to 900k validators, adding 300k more since Shanghai. Here as well we can notice a flattening out in the recent months after a period of aggressive growth.
Note that these are not unique validators, as most of them are represented by a pool or some type of CEX. There is now even a proposal to increase the upper limit for a validator from 32ETH, so at some point the number of validators might consolidates.
Top Ethereum Stakers
Who is staking the most? Here is the chart.
The Lido pool is on the top with almost 10M ETH staked. This pool has even its own token for governance. On the second spot is the Coinbase exchange, followed by another exchange Kraken. Binance is next on the list. One big smart contract pool and the rest of the top centralized exchanges as Ethereum stakers.
As a final thought we can draw a conclusion that after a years of aggressive growth in the amount of staked ETH, there seems to be signs of slowing down. There is almost 30M ETH staked out of the 120M in circulation, that counts to 25% of the total supply staked. Will see how this number goes and will there be further increase in the amount of ETH staked. Lido remains dominant in the amount of ETH staked followed by the big CEXs.
