Ethereum’s Supply Squeeze Deepens as Staking Hits Record, Whales Pull Tokens from Exchanges
06.07.2026 - 01:10:33 | boerse-global.de
Ethereum’s price has taken a battering this year, down roughly 43% since January, yet network fundamentals tell a strikingly different story. Investors are locking up tokens at an unprecedented rate, and large holders are pulling coins off exchanges en masse — a combination that is steadily squeezing the liquid supply.
Staking has crossed a major threshold. For the first time, more than a third of all Ether in circulation is now committed to the network. As of early July, 33.06% of the total supply — roughly 40 million tokens — is tied up in staking contracts. The trend shows no sign of slowing: even the Ethereum Foundation recently transferred nearly 5,000 ETH into Lido Finance, a liquid staking protocol.
The shrinking pool of available tokens is being exacerbated by aggressive withdrawal patterns on trading platforms. At Binance alone, users pulled over $1 billion worth of Ether in a single week at the end of June, according to on-chain data. In a separate incident, analysts recorded 166,000 individual Ethereum withdrawals from the exchange in one day — a volume not seen since March 2023. The EU’s MiCA regulation, which came into force around the same time, helped trigger the outflow as some investors moved assets into self-custody.
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Institutional interest is also reviving after a sluggish period. US spot Ethereum ETFs, after weeks of net redemptions, recorded two consecutive days of inflows totalling roughly $44 million, with BlackRock’s fund alone pulling in nearly $37 million on a single day. The renewed buying pressure is being underpinned by a new initiative called “Ethereum Institutional,” a non-profit launched in early July to serve as a direct bridge between the traditional finance world and the blockchain. Backed by prominent venture capital firms and co-founded by Ethereum co-creator Joe Lubin, the organisation aims to give financial institutions a dedicated point of contact within the ecosystem.
Corporates are following suit. BitMine, the treasury-focused firm, snapped up approximately 283,000 Ether over the past month, boosting its total holdings to well over $13 billion. The activity is part of a broader trend: tokenisation of real-world assets is accelerating. Ondo Finance recently brought a major BlackRock index fund onto the Ethereum blockchain, and shares of chipmaker Micron are now also tradable in tokenised form.
Despite these tailwinds, the market has yet to fully reflect the structural tightening. Ether is changing hands near $1,698, up roughly 8.5% over the past week. The recovery lifted the token from recent lows, but it remains a long way from its 52-week high of nearly $5,000. The latest price bounce was helped by macro conditions: Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh signalled easing inflation risks, lifting Bitcoin, gold and Ethereum alike.
Looking ahead, the next major catalyst is the “Glamsterdam” network upgrade, expected in the second half of 2026. It marks the first major base-layer scalability adjustment since the Merge, and testnets are already running. Developers are targeting Q3 for the final activation. In the meantime, yield-bearing products such as BlackRock’s ETHB ETF continue to absorb available supply. If the self-custody trend persists, a dwindling token float will eventually collide with growing demand — potentially setting the stage for a very different second half of the year.
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