Ethereum Staking Reaches 25% of Supply

Approximately a quarter of the supply of the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization is engaged in staking.

The value of locked coins (30,153,982 ETH) has reached $72 billion. A total of 942,023 validators are participating, according to Dune.

Shapella Boosts Activity

Demand for staking and network participant activity increased significantly following the Shapella upgrade in April 2023. The update allowed users to withdraw locked cryptocurrency.

Since the activation of Shapella, the net inflow into staking amounted to 10.25 million ETH.

Due to increased market participant activity, the yield from this activity has decreased over the past year from 8.6% to the current ~3.8%.

Lido’s Steadfast Position

A significant portion of coins (31.4%) is staked through the Lido service. Such platforms allow those with less than 32 ETH to support the network. The derivative tokens stETH received in exchange for locked funds can be used in various DeFi protocols to maximize yield.

Coinbase’s share is also relatively large at 14.4%. Binance holds 4.33%.

A Bitter Pill

Despite market participant activity, Ethereum lags behind many other ecosystems in terms of the proportion of coins staked.

For example, Solana’s corresponding figure is 67.71%. Sui’s is 82.74%, with a staking yield of just 3.59%. Celestia’s figures are 52.22% and 14.7%, respectively.

Previously, ARK Invest and 21Shares proposed increasing the yield of an Ethereum ETF through staking.