U.S. crypto exchange Kraken has initiated withdrawal requests for their stakes following the Shapella upgrade that introduced ether (ETH) withdrawals.

The upgrade has resulted in a massive influx of withdrawal requests, surpassing $1.5 billion, including both partial and full exits. Kraken provides a staking service that streamlined the Ethereum staking process, allowing users to deposit into the platform and create validators on their behalf.

This development follows Kraken’s settlement of charges brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission for allegedly failing to register the offer and sale of its staking program in the U.S. Kraken agreed to pay a $30 million fine.

In response, Kraken has requested to withdraw over 551,000 ETH (valued at $1 billion), accounting for more than 65% of the 820,000 ETH (approximately $1.5 billion) currently in the queue for withdrawal from the network, according to data from Nansen. 

The amount of ETH waiting to be withdrawn by Kraken does not represent its entire stake, but rather a portion of its 1.25 million ETH ($2.5 billion) staked on Ethereum.

(by Vishal Chawla)