Staked Ether (stETH)/ETH Peg Deviates Further, Risks Another Crypto Market Crash?

Staked ETH (stETH) deviates further from Ethereum (ETH) with the exchange rate on Curve dropping to 0.9585 ETH. The stETH-ETH peg is impacted after Three Arrows Capital removed 20,945 stETH worth nearly $33.76 million and Aave paused Ethereum (ETH) borrowing until the Merge. This risks another liquidity crisis similar to June.

Staked Ether (stETH) Deviates From Ethereum (ETH) Peg

According to the Curve liquidity pool, the Staked Ether (stETH) exchange price has dropped to 0.9585 ETH. Moreover, the current pool has 155,860 ETH accounting for 22.72% and 530,141 stETH accounting for 77.28%.

The Staked Ether price has deviated further from Ethereum (ETH) price as users unwind their positions to receive ETHW forked airdrop. EthereumPoW plans an Ethereum hard fork as Ethereum switches to PoS after the Merge. ETHW is its native token.

Moreover, Aave pausing ETH borrowing and Three Arrows Capital and whales removing stETH from liquidity pools have impacted the stETH-ETH peg.

DeFi lending and borrowing platform Aave passed a governance proposal to stop ETH borrowing until the Merge. Massive ETH borrowing ahead of Merge and Ethereum PoW hard fork could have increased insolvency risk for Aave. In fact, Aave pausing ETH borrowing has caused Instadapp users to unwind their positions in stETH/ETH pool.

Three Arrows Capital removed 20,945 stETH worth nearly $33.76 million from the Curve ETH liquidity pool yesterday. Three Arrows currently has Staked Ether worth over $31 million in its wallets.

Also, ETH whale “BlueWhale0211” removed 11,393.81 Staked Ether worth $16.63 million. These removals of Staked Ether have caused the peg to deviate further.

Staked Ether’s Link to Crypto Market Crash

Staked Ether (stETH) losing its peg to Ethereum (ETH) last June caused a liquidity-led crypto market crash. The liquidity crisis in the DeFi market triggered a contagion effect causing crypto companies including Three Arrows Capital, Voyager, and Celsius to file for bankruptcy, while others paused withdrawals due to lack of liquidity.

The Staked Ether and ETH prices have dropped 9% in the last 24 hours. At the time of writing, the Staked Ether price is trading at $1,457 while Ethereum’s price is trading at $1,514.