Deposits

Ether hits 11-month high as post-Shapella withdrawals pass 1M ETH

Since the Shapella hard fork on April 12, Ether has seen a price gain of nearly 10%.

Over 1 million Ether (ETH) worth $2.1 billion has now been withdrawn from Ethereum’s Beacon Chain within the first four days of the Shapella hard fork and Ether has pushed over $2,100 for the first time in 11 months.

The 1.03 million ETH withdrawals have come from 473,7000 withdrawal requests, with Saturday, April 15 the largest withdrawal day at 392,800 ETH, according to data from beaconcha.in.

Of the active validators, nearly 87% or 469,000 of the 540,000 are now able to withdraw their staked Ether.

*April 15 to 16 saw the largest Ether withdrawals processed so far, with 392,800 and 280,400 Ether withdrawn, respectively. Source:* *beaconcha.in*

While members of the Ethereum community were split on what impact Shapella would have on the price of Ether, the first four days have produced close to a 10% rise.

*ETH has increased about 9% since the Shapella upgrade took effect late on April 12. Source:* *CoinGecko*

The figures are of little “surprise” to Lachlan Feeney, chief executive of blockchain consulting and development firm Labrys, who told Cointelegraph that many validators are re-staking Ether back onto the Beacon Chain:

“Much of the stake that has been withdrawn over the last few days is actually going straight back into The Beacon Chain as validators are looking to compound their interest. So much so that net stake is currently increasing.”

Given the current macroeconomic climate, Feeney said that many early stakers wanted to liquidate after what has been nearly a 30-month wait for some.

Over the mid to long-term, Feeney believes the Shapella hard fork will only increase the amount of Ether staked, which of course will only strengthen Ethereum at the consensus level:

“Because Shapella is a massive de-risking event, over the medium to long-term more, not less, ETH will be staked. We anticipate that in the not too distant future, we will reach a record high of Ether being staked.”

Markus Thielen, the head of research at digital asset platform Matrixport, told Cointelegraph that the closure of crypto exchange Kraken’s staking services may have contributed to the higher figures:

“It appears largely due to the Kraken’s staking business being unwound. This will only have a temporary effect as we are also seeing a significant demand from investors who now are able to stake with more visibility on the liquidity of staked positions.”

Thielen said he expects a large amount of un-staked Ether from Kraken to be “recycled” back into the Beacon Chain through other entities.

While Thielen anticipates the positive price action to cool off this week amid increased selling pressure, he thinks Shapella will ultimately attract more institutional investors to stake on Ethereum.

The 1 million milestone is a 500% increase from an April 11 prediction by blockchain intelligence firm Glassnode, which estimated only 170,000 Ether would be un-staked after the first week of Shapella.

On-chain analytics firm Nansen slightly overshot the mark, predicting 1.4 million Ether would be withdrawn after the first few days of Shapella.

Magazine: ‘Account abstraction’ supercharges Ethereum wallets: Dummies guide

FDIC sells Signature Bank deposits to Flagstar, crypto not included

The 40 branches of Signature Bank will officially reopen and operate as Flagstar Bank on March 20.

Only a week after its collapse, Signature Bank’s deposits and loans are set to be sold to Flagstar Bank, a subsidiary of New York Community Bancorp — but crypto-related deposits will not be part of the deal.

The United States Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation a nnounced the agreement on March 19, which will see $38.4 billion worth of non-cryptocurrency-related deposits and $12.9 billion in loans taken over by the Michigan-based bank under a “purchase and assumption agreement.”

From March 20, Signature’s Bank 40 branches will begin operating as Flagstar Bank, where all deposits assumed by Flagstar Bank will continue to be insured up until the $250,000 insurance limit.

Today, we entered into an agreement with a subsidiary of New York Community Bancorp, Inc., to purchase and assume deposits and assets out of Signature Bridge Bank. Read more ➡️ https://t.co/bSshY93lBh. pic.twitter.com/b9RBvYtGF7

— FDIC (@FDICgov) March 19, 2023

The takeover deal from Flagstar Bank did not include approximately $4 billion of deposits held by Signature Bank’s digital assets business. Instead, the FDIC confirmed that it would transfer these deposits directly to customers who opened a digital banking account, stating:

“The FDIC will provide these deposits directly to customers whose accounts are associated with the digital banking business.”

The $4 billion figure amounts to 4.5% of the total $88.6 billion deposits that Signature Bank had as of Dec. 31.

Coinbase, Celsius and Paxos are three crypto firms that recently confirmed having some exposure to Signature Bank.

Last week, a March 17 report from Reuters cited two sources who suggested that any buyer of Signature would be required to divest crypto activities as part of a potential rescue plan.

At the time, an FDIC spokesperson denied this, noting that the agency did not require crypto divestment as part of any sale.

Castle Island Ventures partner Nic Carter believes the latest announcement shows that the FDIC “lied” in its response to Reuters.

Wow. Wow. the FDIC lied and Reuters was correct. I’m shocked. Shocked I tell you. This is the same FDIC chair who presided over Choke Point 1.0 by the way. pic.twitter.com/CHu8MgSW4X

— nic carter (@nic__carter) March 20, 2023

The takeover comes after Signature Bridge Bank was created by the FDIC on March 12, following the New York Department of Financial Services closing the bank and appointing the FDIC as its receiver.

FTX website comes back online with message advising against deposits

Neither FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried nor any FTX official has provided its users with clarity as to why FTX’s website was taken down.

Financially-troubled crypto exchange FTX has brought its website back online following a period of intermittent downtime — with the trading platform now sporting a banner confirming withdrawals are halted and advising users against depositing.

The FTX website returned online at approximately 9:00 pm UTC on Nov. 9, after encountering five separate periods of network downtime spanning over two hours, according to the “IS IT DOWN OR JUST ME” website.

The crypto community on Twitter has also noticed a new bright red banner that can be seen throughout the website that reads:

“FTX is currently unable to process withdrawals. We strongly advise against depositing.”

*FTX’s notification on deposits and withdrawals on the trading platform. Source: FTX.com*

A pinned message on the official FTX Telegram Group on Nov. 8 also confirmed the halting of withdrawals, without any estimates about when they would return.

“We are waiting for confirmation from our team to ramp it up. Right now we dont have an ETA but surely will communicate it as soon as we have it,” a member of FTX support staff wrote in the message.

Attempting to sign up for a new account on the website also comes with an alert that “signups are paused” at this current time, Cointelegraph has discovered.

This suggests that deposits, while “strongly advised against,” are only accessible to those who have existing accounts on the trading platform.

Meanwhile, two websites linked to the crypto exchange including Alameda Research and FTX Ventures remain down at the time of writing.

It comes amid an ongoing liquidity crisis being faced by the crypto exchange.

A Nov. 9 report from the Wall Street Journal claims that the exchange is facing a shortfall of $8 billion and is unable to meet withdrawal demands without emergency funding.

Binance initially signed a non-binding letter of intent to buy out the embattled exchange but pulled out less than 48 hours later, citing the mishandling of customer funds and alleged United States agency investigations as the reasons for its change in decision.

Google search results for “FTX website” also saw a large spike over the last few hours following the reports that the FTX website was intermittently going down, according to Google Trends: