Ether holders are urgently staking their tokens with network validators. This has pushed deposit activity to its highest level since the Shapella upgrade last month.
In fact, the total volume of crypto assets being staked has exceeded 20 million.
The latest milestone comes a month after the highly anticipated Ethereum Shanghai upgrade, which has been driving record-breaking Ether staking deposits.
"Just one month since the Ethereum Shapella Upgrade. Since then, the total volume of staked ETH has surpassed the 20 million mark."
Shanghai allowed for the withdrawal of locked tokens in staking contracts for the first time—a significant step following last year's Merge to complete the network's transition from PoW to PoS.
The surge in deposit activity seems to have been propelled by organized staking service providers and reinvestment of rewards after withdrawal.
According to Lookonchain, an Ethereum whale identified as an early participant in the blockchain ICO, has reappeared after being inactive for over two years and staked a massive amount of 4,032 ETH (worth nearly $7.4 million).
Lido Finance is one of the major staking platforms that has gained prominence following the success of Shapella. It allows anyone to stake any amount instead of directly depositing into the mainnet, with a minimum deposit requirement of 32 ETH.
The service deployed its v2 version on May 15 after a successful online vote.
Despite being one of the largest liquidity staking protocols on Ethereum, Lido has only processed 0.42% of the total withdrawal amount so far.
