The number of Ether tokens staked on the Ethereum 2.0 deposit contract has surpassed 9.5 million tokens. The deposit contract was part of the Beacon Chain upgrade in December 2020, when Ethereum started its journey towards Ethereum 2.0.
9.5M ETH on Ethereum 2.0 deposit contracts
After the Beacon Chain upgrade was implemented, only around 600,000 Ether was staked into the deposit contract. After only one week into launch, these contracts surpassed the 1 million mark, and now, they are beyond 9.5 million coins.
The growing number of Ether deposited into the deposit contracts has increased due to the increased participation of whale investors and institutions. One of the major milestones made on this contract was in November last year when the total number of contracts reached 7 million when Ether reached an all-time high of $4900. These contracts had a total value of $35 billion.
However, Ethereum has dropped significantly in value due to the recession happening across the cryptocurrency market. This has resulted in a dip in the value of Ether locked into the Ethereum 2.0 deposit contracts. At the time of writing, the 9.5 million ETH locked into the contracts was worth around $24 billion.
The dip in Ethereum prices has also contributed to a reduction in transaction fees on the network. The fees are at their lowest in seven months. The dip is due to the reduced demand for Ether transactions due to the plummeting prices.
Changing behaviour in crypto whales
The current recession across the cryptocurrency market has changed behaviour among crypto whales. Bitcoin and Ethereum have been stagnating, and whales have been staying away. Since the beginning of this month, large investors have lowered the number of Bitcoin they accumulate.
According to Ali Martinez, a crypto trader and analyst on Twitter said, “The number of whales on the network with 100 to 100,000 BTC has remained flat since Feb 1. These wealthy market participants do not appear interested in buying BTC at the current price levels and could be expecting to buy Bitcoin at a discount.”
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