The Ethereum we know, we love(or hate) is a PoW consensus blockchain. As a PoW blockchain, more often than not, enivronmental concerns is the main stick used to beat it. Vitalik said no-more and ETH2 was born. ETH2 or Beaconchain was a PoS form of Ethereum, that was deployed and runs now parallely to the PoW mainnet. It is prophesized, in the very near future a "Merge" will occur, where the Ethereum blockchain entirely transforms into PoS chain.

Before the Merge occurs, since Beacon chain was active and was PoS, it means, it paid out staking rewards for those running validators or delegating their stake. This was utilized by 3rd parties like Lido to create liquid staking opportunities for ETH. This meant, alot of users were able to take part in Beacon chain from the mainnet and get staking yield. Now as the Merge is closer than ever, we will look at some stats regarding the staking from mainnet and if there is an increased fervor onchain with all the talks of imminent ETH merge happening.

We will primarily look at the ETH2 deposit contract, and analyse for activity spikes over the past month. Secondarily, we will look at Lido stETH mints, which is the largest 3rd party liquid staking option on mainnet.

First analysing the activity on the ETH2 deposit contract - 0x00000000219ab540356cBB839Cbe05303d7705Fa

• Until February, we can see that the amount of ETH locked in Beacon chain has been growing in a linear fashion.
• However over the past month, this grow has greatly accelerated
• In the first two months of March, the deposits saw a parabolic growth

• The daily deposit activity doesn't seem to show any significant spikes
• The 20day Moving Average show a increase in ETH deposits
• The increased talk of the Merge has not only brought attention to the event, but also more Capital

Checking the transaction activity during these times:

• Number of users has remained constant.
• Transaction volume has remainined fairly stable, but it seems as the March data has higher transaction volume 'low' than January and February, suggesting increased activity
• Constant number of users, could be probably because, minimum 32 ETH must be deposited by a validator, hence, only certain users can access to such high number of funds.

In order to get a better idea of the ETH merge activity, we will track stETH activity, as this removes the 32ETH barrier and make is more easy to reach for the retail and day to day speculator.

Let us check the minting activity of Lido stETH, by tracking mints from Genesis address of the token - 0xae7ab96520de3a18e5e111b5eaab095312d7fe84

• Now we can see clear implications of the Merge Talk
• Amount of stETH minted, which is 1:1 propotion to the ETH deposited into Beacon chain, has risen by 10 to 20 times over the past month
• Lido batched these smaller amount into multiple ETH batched. During low volume time, Lido has less number of batches and batched once in a while. This is why there is volatility in the ETH2 activity chart
• Now, with the increased activity and volume of capital, this is much more frequent- resulting in higher lows of activity.

Checking out the minting activity

• Once again, we see increased overall activity during March
• From ranging between 150 to 250 txs and users in January, during March, the same metrics are ranging between 250 to 400
• This small bumb in activity is probably from more wealthier users as this has bought in more capital that average.

Closing thoughts:

The Merge is on us, the hype train has already started. Clearly in the onchain data, more ETH is being staked on Beacon chain. Activity around ETH2 smartcontract as well as Lido, the largest liquid staking option. More users and more ETH is piling up. Its going to be a great March for Ethereum hodlers, should the Merge execute as intended.