Yesterday, Ethereum (ETH) held on exchanges hit a four-year low following record staking figures on Ethereum 2.0 (the network’s incoming upgrade, recently rebranded to “ Consensus Layer ”).

Centralized exchanges tracked by the analytics platform Glassnode currently hold 19.09 million Ethereum, a metric which was just under 20 million in July 2018, suggests Glassnode data.

Moreover, Ethereum held on exchanges has plummeted by 10% from 21.191 million over the past five days.

These data points were also firmed up with high outflows from exchanges recently.

Exchange outflows hit a 13-month high, as reported by Glassnode, indicating less interest among investors to trade or hold the asset on centralized exchanges.

Chainalysis, a blockchain tracking and reporting platform, reported similar findings: “The change in ETH held on exchanges experienced the largest one-day decrease in 202 days, decreasing by 432.84k ETH to 249.58k ETH.”

The sharp decline in Ethereum held across exchanges is likely a result of the growing amount of Ethereum staked as the network prepares for its biggest upgrade yet.

Unlike the current Ethereum network, Ethereum 2.0 is a proof-of-stake (PoS) network where validators stake 32 Ethereum to verify the network's integrity.

Ethereum staked on the Beacon Chain, a PoS version of Ethereum that launched in December 2020, has been steadily increasing over the past few days too. 

The merge is expected on September 19 , an event which will see the current mainnet merge with the PoS version, and today the total amount staked currently sits at 13.14 million via a total of more than 410,000 different validators.

Amid these bullish exchange flows, Ethereum has jumped 8.6% in the past 24 hours and traded at around $1,638.

The second-largest cryptocurrency with a market capitalization of nearly $199 billion, has rallied over 34.5% over the past week.