🧘‍♂️ ETH Stakers Stick Around

GM Defiers!

And happy Friday. Another ETH-heavy newsletter. Ether is holding on to its post-Shapella gains, hovering above $2,000 at the time of writing, as staking deposits outpace withdrawals. Also, most of those withdrawing are taking out rewards, not principal, signaling they want to continue supporting Ethereum. As the Ethereum community runs a victory lap, Ether.fi is also celebrating as deposits on the new liquid staking platform surge. But it may pay off (wink*) to run a solo node, says Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake. Meanwhile, in NFT land, one collector is wreaking havoc for BAYC.

✍️ In today’s newsletter:

• ETH staking deposits outpace withdrawals
• ETH stakers are only withdrawing rewards
• There’s a new kid on the liquid staking block
• Ethereum researcher drops airdrop alpha
• BAYC floor drops

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📈 Markets in last 24 hrs:

MARKETS HERE

🎬 WATCH

Watch our livestream where crypto experts answer qsabout staking, NFTs and yield farms reporting. And check out our podcast with Harsh Rajat, the founder of Push Protocol, who talks about the intersection of web3 and AI.

Markets

Ether Surges To 11-Month High as Staking Deposits Outpace Withdrawals

TLDR ETH last changed hands for $2,100, its highest level in 11 months.

• Ethereum’s bullish price action came in spite of the network processing a meaningful number of withdrawals, with 110,525 validators removing 221,253 ETH ($445.6M) since the upgrade, according to Beaconcha.in.
• Meanwhile, deposits surged Friday and began to outpace withdrawals, according to Nansen, though the total amount of staked ETH remains below its pre-Shapella high.

SO WHAT Ethereum’s long-awaited Shapella upgrade went over a day ago, yet there are no signs of the havoc some analysts predicted would ensue once staked Ether could be withdrawn.

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Liquid Staking

Liquid Staking Platform Ether.Fi Deposits Surge Ahead Of Launch

TLDR Crypto locked in Ether.Fi has grown to more than $37M since it began accepting deposits ahead of its launch on Ethereum mainnet on March 4. “Ether.Fi offers truly decentralized staking,” the company boasts on its website. “The staker, not the node operator, owns all the keys.” CEO Mike Silagadze said while the platform was built thinking of institutional investors, most of the initial capital has come from retail.

SO WHAT Ether.fi users retain custody of their Ether by generating mnemonic withdrawal credentials and validator keys. It’s the latest player in a fiercely competitive space. While growing fast, its deposits are rounding error in the $19B staking industry. Lido, the industry leader, accounts for almost two-thirds of that figure.

Airdrops

Ethereum Researcher Predicts Solo Stakers May Get Airdrops

TLDR Justin Drake, a researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, said there might be airdrops on the way for individual stakers in the Ethereum network. Drake implied other organizations, not necessarily the EF, were tracking information that is publicly available on the Ethereum blockchain, to identify the wallets of the most committed Ethereum users.

SO WHAT Drake’s prediction may serve as an incentive for ETH stakers to run solo nodes, which would bolster the network’s decentralization.

NFTs

Bored Apes Drop 8% As Major Holder Exits

TLDR A single large holder of Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFTs has sold 27 of them, worth nearly $3M, in the past day. Over the past two days, the BAYC floor price has fallen by nearly 8%, pushing the collection’s market capitalization below that of CryptoPunks, which is now the most valuable NFT collection.

SO WHAT The fact that a single investor was able to move the price of the biggest NFT collection out there, underscores how illiquid and immature the NFT market still is.

🔎 FROM OUR REPORTERS

Here’s what Sam is watching 👀

• LexDAO calling to sign an open letter to petition against Illinois bill HB3479!
• ixETH – The Ethereum Liquid Staking Index Token

🌍 ELSEWHERE

• Crypto VC slumps in Q1 (CNBC)
• Bitcoin Thief Once Worth $3.4 Billion Gets Year in Prison (Bloomberg)
• Elon Musk Creates New Artificial Intelligence Company X.AI (WSJ)