Massive Offloading Of Ethereum, LSD Holdings Ahead Of Shanghai Upgrade

The most-awaited Ethereum Shanghai mainnet upgrade is scheduled at epoch 194048 on April 12 at 10:27:35 PM UTC, as per the announcement by Ethereum core developers. The Shapella (Shanghai + Capella) upgrade will enable validators to withdraw their Ethereum staked on the Beacon Chain to the execution layer.

While it was expected that Ethereum will witness low selling pressure, institutions and investors have started dumping Ethereum (ETH) and Liquid staking derivatives (LSD) ahead of the Ethereum Shanghai upgrade. Whales are also dumping ETH worth millions to crypto exchanges.

On-chain data firm Arkram on April 12 reported that activity in liquid staking derivatives (LSD) tokens is rising ahead of the Shapella upgrade. A wallet linked to prominent anonymous crypto trader Sisyphus has sold over Lido DAO (LDO) tokens worth $400k.

Lookonchain reported that Blockchain Capital sold over 1.5 million LDO and 65,352 Rocket Pool (RPL) tokens today. The entity currently holds no LDO and 107,085 RPL tokens.

Blockchain Capital bought 1.5 million LDO with 1000 ETH at an average price of $1.64 from Jan 27 to Feb 21, 2022. Then sold all LDO at a price of $2.33 today and got 1,871 ETH worth $3.57 million, making a profit of over $1 million.

Top LSD tokens falling massively in the last few hours. LDO price fell 8.27% to $2.24, RPL price plummeted over 9%, and Frax Share (FRAX) fell 6%. Some marked this as market manipulation as big investors staked millions of ETH in January to March and now selling their tokens.

Glassnode in a tweet said “We see exiting depositors are predominantly those with only one validator, and those who deployed their stake in the pre-launch phase or first quarter of the Beacon Chain lifespan.”

Also Read: Ethereum (ETH) Worth Billions At Risk Of Selloff After Shanghai (Shapella) Upgrade

Whales Anticipate Fall In Ethereum Price

Whales speculate a fall in the Ethereum (ETH) price due to a selloff after the Shanghai upgrade. In the last 24 hours, whales have moved nearly 500 million ETH.

As per Whale Alert data, a whale dumped 19,231 ETH worth $35,948,490 to the crypto exchange Coinbase. Whales were caught moving 54,652 ETH and 100,604 ETH to another wallet for dumping.

13,726 ETH worth $25,948,586 were transferred from Paxos Treasury to an unknown wallet, according to Whale Alert.

ETH price currently trades at $1,874, down over 2% in the last 24 hours. Interestingly, ETH-USD spot volume has hit two-year lows relative to BTC ahead of the Shanghai upgrade.

Also Read: Binance CEO “CZ” Says Crypto Regulatory Crackdown Will Boost Adoption