Tron Co-Founder Unstakes $56 Million Worth of Ethereum Through Lido: What Does It Mean for ETH Prices?

Justin Sun, the co-founder of Tron, recently withdrew 30,000 ETH (worth approximately $56 million) from Lido, a liquidity staking service provider, according to Lookonchain, a blockchain analytics platform.

This move reduced Sun’s Ethereum stake via Lido to 263,294 ETH, equivalent to $491.6 million at current rates.

The exact reasons behind Sun’s withdrawal of 30,000 ETH are unclear. It could signal his intention to sell some of the Ethereum, transfer it to a different staking platform, or perhaps run his private Ethereum validator node.

Despite Sun’s unstaking, he remains one of the largest stakers at Lido, accounting for over 9% of the total ETH staked.

However, this decision might raise some concerns among market participants. Nevertheless, as of July 10, ETH prices were holding steady and approaching $1,900.

Contrary to fears prior to the Shanghai upgrade in mid-April, the number of users staking ETH has continued to increase. Data shows that over 21 million ETH has been locked by more than 657,000 validators as of July 10.

With the implementation of the Shanghai upgrade, ETH holders who staked a minimum of 32 ETH in the Beacon Chain since December 2020 can now withdraw their assets.

Despite initial concerns that more coins would be withdrawn and sold, impacting ETH prices, the number of validators and locked coins has continued to rise on the Beacon Chain and other staking solutions.

While Lido is the leading staking provider for ETH and the largest DeFi protocol by total value locked (TVL), managing over $14.6 billion of assets, recent lawsuits filed by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) against crypto exchanges Binance and Coinbase have alleged that certain proof-of-stake coins, including Cardano’s ADA and Algorand’s ALGO, are unregistered securities.