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Ethereum had been one of the largest winners of the rally that rocked the crypto market last week. The network had seen a boost when one of the developers of Ethereum announced that the upcoming Merge would likely happen sometime in September. It triggered a ripple effect that spread to the other digital assets in the space. But it seems Ethereum investors are nowhere close to being done, given the on-chain metrics from the last week.
Exchange Outflows Ramp Up
In the last week, large and small Ethereum investors alike have been ramping up in terms of accumulation. This shines through in the among of ETH that was recorded, leaving centralized exchanges versus the number that was going into them. The disparity between the two is stark and shows exactly how investors are feeling when it comes to investing in ETH.
Numbers for the last week have shown that $3.3 billion total in ETH had flowed into centralized exchanges. However, the volume of ETH flowing out was about 100% higher. Data from Glassine shows that $6.5 billion flowed out, leading to a -$3.1 billion net flow.
This shows that investors are accumulating by moving their ETH out of exchanges and presumably to personal wallets for safekeeping. It also points to long-term hold sentiment among these investors. Additionally, it means that the sell pressure that has weighed down the market over the last couple of weeks has begun to ease. In its place is now a high buying pressure, leaving investors to accumulate as much ETH as possible.
ETH price falls to $1,500 | Source: ETHUSD on TradingView.com
Ethereum Merge Draws Closer
The majority of the gains recorded by Ethereum over the last week have been attributed to the updates made about the upcoming Merge. Ethereum had gained more than 40% on the back of that announcement alone, but the price has not been the only thing affected by the announcement.
The ETH staked on the Ethereum network ahead of the Merge had been on the rise over the last couple of months but witnessed a jump after the announcement was made. At the time of this writing, the number of ETH staked on the network had reached a new all-time high of 13,152,149 ETH, and this number is expected to grow as the date draws closer.
This means that more than $20 billion in ETH is now being held in the ETH 2.0 deposit contract. Now, this is not the highest point it has been in terms of dollar value, but it is nonetheless significant given that the price of ETH is down more than 70% from its ATH.
Featured image from Financial Times, chart from TradingView.com
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