The amount of ETH staked on Ethereum’s largest liquid-staking protocol, Lido Finance, has just reached $5 million, according to on-chain’s analytics platform, IntoTheBlock. Following the Ethereum Merge, the popularity of liquid staking protocols such as Lido Finance has increased.
More than 16 million Ethereum (ETH), or 16,355,271 worth $25,962,684,460, have now been deposited into Ethereum’s Beacon Chain staking contract, Etherscan shows. The increasing amount of ETH staked can be seen as a positive sign for Ethereum adoption and security, but it may also increase pressure to allow withdrawals.
Positive news for ETH stakers
Ethereum users are one step closer to accessing the over $26 billion worth of ETH staked in the world’s largest smart contract network.
According to an update posted by Parithosh, an Ethereum Foundation developer, the first public withdrawals testnet, the Zhejiang public testnet, is expected to launch on Feb. 1.
“The Shanghai+Capella upgrade is going full steam ahead! The first public withdrawals testnet is launching 1st of Feb at 15 UTC,” he wrote.
In further details he shared, the Shanghai and Capella upgrades will be triggered six days later (at epoch 1350) on the testnet, which will allow users to deposit validators, practice BLS change and exit without risk.
The first mainnet shadow fork intended to test the viability of the ETH staking withdrawal capability, a feature expected to launch by March, was successfully deployed last week, according to an announcement made by Ethereum’s core developers.
