ETH’s post-Shapella price outlook: sells outpace buys ahead of Binance withdrawals

Ethereum (ETH) price raced to an 11-month high above $2,142 on Coinbase exchange on Sunday, the major price rally for ETH coming after the cryptocurrency’s successful Shapella upgrade. But what is the latest for Ethereum after it rose despite the sell pressure that followed enabling withdrawals for staked Ether?

Kaiko, a leading institutional grade crypto market data provider, has shared insights into what could be next for Ether prices this week.

Binance to enable staked ETH withdrawals

According to Kaiko, Ethereum’s post-Shapella performance has been in contrast with price movement following the last major upgrade – the Merge.

Like the Merge, Shapella went live successfully and saw the enabling of staked ETH withdrawals for the first time since December 2020. The withdrawal of 1 million staked ETH was expected to push Ether prices down, but instead the market rallied to highs above $2,100 for the first time in nearly a year.

Kaiko analysts commented in Monday’s data debrief:

“While Ethereum’s Merge upgrade last September was more of a “buy the rumor sell the news” type of event, Shapella appears to have had the opposite impact on price. ETH spot prices dropped by nearly 18% post-Merge while they are up 11% since Shapella, despite fears of mass selling.”

Indeed, net sells outpaced buys by $30 million on 14 April and were also outpacing buys by $28 million today. But as investors take note of the Coinbase ETH/USD pair’s sell orders outpacing buys, Kaiko notes that Coinbase already granted access to ETH withdrwals while Binance will do so on 19 April.

The result appears to be that traders are looking to cash out Ether for USD, which could explain today’s buy/sell volume. What this implies then is that the net sells is “an interesting dynamic to watch.” Of particular note would be the fact that Binance will enable ETH withdrawals in just two days, a scenario that could bring new sell pressure for ETH prices.

ETH flipping bullish as open interest hits multi-year high

Despite the potential for downside pressure, Kaiko points to last week’s significant inflows into derivatives markets as indicative of a possible flip to bullish sentiment for the broader market.

It’s these bullish bets that have seen ETH options volume on Deribit, the largest crypto options market, surpass $1 billion for the first time since November 2022 when the FTX debacle hit the market.

On-chain data shows that call volumes jumped to $700 million after the Shapella upgrade – a yearly high that greatly outpaced puts. At the same time, open interest for ETH perpetual futures rose to over $6 billion while funding rates stayed positive.

Ether currently trades around $2,080, down 1.5% in the past 24 hours but still up more than 11% this past week.

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