Ethers' contributions to the ETH2 deposit contract during the last 7 days have become extremely unpopular.

Unexpectedly, the amount of ETH coins transferred to the Beacon Chain over the past week has dropped significantly ahead of the upcoming The Merge update. It is symptomatic that this is the lowest recorded level in the entire history of Ethereum. In the opinion of some experts, this phenomenon may be directly related to speculation and expectations for free tokens created as a result of the hard fork of the second largest cryptocurrency network. The second reason that may be behind this is that, in the opinion of some Ether owners, there are also concerns that the planned merger will fail.

The number of weekly deposits at Beacon Chain has dropped sharply

In recent times, Ether holders are not very keen on putting their ETH coins into a deposit contract ahead of the upcoming update that will see Ethereum transitioning from Proof of Work (PoW) to Proof of Stake (PoS).

Data from Dune Analytics shows that the number of weekly deposits at Beacon Chain has reached its lowest level in history. Theoretically, there may be at least several reasons for this strong decline. According to some experts, one of the reasons may be that investors can expect ETHW tokens for airdrop, which will be the new hard fork of the second largest cryptocurrency.

It is increasingly rumored that some speculators are counting on short-term increases in the new cryptocurrency, which will be the fruit of another split in the ETH network. The whole idea of ​​the new hard fork comes from a group of miners who oppose Ethereum's abandonment of PoW.

In the event that the owners of Ether would send their coins, for example to the Lido protocol, they would miss the drop associated with the network's hard fork. Hence, they may prefer to keep ETH in their own wallets.

Another reason for the decline in ETH2 deposits may be community concerns that there will be some difficulties with changing the consensus mechanism. There are also concerns that they will not be able to withdraw their Ethers for at least 6 months from the implementation of The Merge, and this period may be extended up to a year. An additional downside is that the possibility for validators to fully withdraw ETH will also be overtly limited by the protocol.

According to analysts, all those who wanted to send their Ethers to Beacon Chain have already done so. This contract currently covers over 11% of the total ETH supply available in circulation.

It seems to be quite obvious that some people may also wait to place their coins until they are sure that The Merge will end well.

The Beacon Chain has been operating in parallel with the current Ethereum Mainnet since December 2020. The total amount of Ethers deposited in this chain is currently over 13.3 million units.

The phenomenon of a systematic decline in the number of weekly deposits is observed by analysts since the beginning of May this year. Last week brought only 12,377 payments to ETH2, which is a contrast to 500,000 payments made in one of the weeks of March 2022.

Currently, the second largest cryptocurrency is moving around 1.6 thousand dollars per coin. Over the last 7 days, its rate has dropped by nearly 10%. At the current rate, it is separated from ATH by over 66%.