Kraken and Coinbase are likely to remove Ethereum staking.
The Shapella upgrade will enable the withdrawal of the ETH stake.
Kraken, the US-based crypto exchange, has started withdrawing all staked Ethereum (ETH) amid US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) pressure. The exchange started the procedure to withdraw all staked ETH associated with its users in the U.S. ahead of the Ethereum Shapella upgrade, which is scheduled for April 12 at 22:27:35 UTC.
In February, the U.S. SEC filed a lawsuit against the crypto exchange Kraken for selling unregistered crypto asset staking as a service program to its US-based customers. Following the regulator’s investigation into Kraken, the exchange agreed to settle charges with the U.S. SEC and decided to shut down its on-chain cryptocurrency staking service except for Ethereum.
Shapella Upgrade Puts Trading Pressure on Ethereum
The Ethereum Shapella upgrade will enable the withdrawal of the ETH staked on the Beacon chain to the execution layer. So the Kraken started withdrawing all the staked ETH.
Moreover, with the regularity pressure from the SEC on the staking service, the crypto exchanges Coinbase and Kraken are likely to remove the ETH staking after the Shapella upgrade. Coinbase and Kraken have 2.29 million and 1.25 million Ethereum stakes in the platform, respectively. Ethereum is likely to feel the trading pressure after the Shapella upgrade as millions of ETH stakes become available this week.
At the time of writing, the trading price of ETH is around $1,914.64, with an increase of 0.56% in the last 24 hours. The trading volume of ETH surged by 20.6% to reach $11,075,094,509, according to CoinMarketCap.