The Ethereum validator exit queue is at its longest in nearly two years as $2.3 billion worth of Ether now awaits unstaking. Is it profit taking or repositioning?
Ether dipped more than 7% from its 2025 high as the queue for validators and investors to unstake the asset hit an 18-month high on Wednesday.
Ethereum is a proof-of-stake network that requires validators to stake the asset and lock up funds to secure the network.
Validators that want to exit Ethereum’s staking system need to go through a validator exit queue, “and in the past few days, the number has absolutely surged,” staking protocol Everstake reported on Wednesday.
There is currently 644,330 ETH worth around $2.34 billion lined up to leave with an 11-day wait, according to ValidatorQueue. There was a similar spike in the exit queue in January 2024 when ETH prices fell 15% in the second half of the month.
Unstaking could mean validators are looking to free up the asset for sale, but that isn’t always the case.
Everstake said that it wasn’t a sign of fear or collapse, but a “shift,” adding that validators are likely exiting to “restake, optimize or rotate operators, not leaving Ethereum.”
They added that investors and holders also may want to lock in profits, “because it’s natural to assume that some stakers are preparing to sell, which could create short-term sell pressure and potentially lead to a price correction.”
Despite the apparent exodus, there is also 390,000 ETH worth around $1.2 billion in the entry queue, meaning that the net amount being unstaked is only around 255,000 ETH.
Additionally, the entry queue has significantly increased since early June, which was when Ether treasury companies such as SharpLink and Bitmine started aggressively accumulating the asset. The majority of corporate strategy firms have said they will stake ETH for additional yields.
Related: Ether Machine founder claims ETH outperformed BTC over past 10 years
The number of active validators is also at an all-time high of just below 1.1 million, as is the amount staked, which is around 35.7 million ETH, or almost 30% of the total supply, worth around $130 billion.
The asset has retreated around 7% from its seven-month high of $3,844, which it hit on Monday, dipping below $3,550 during late trading on Wednesday as traders lock in profits.
ETH prices had recovered marginally to $3,643 at the time of writing and remain up more than 50% over the past month.
There has also been a huge demand from US spot Ether ETFs, which have seen more than $2.5 billion in inflows over the past six trading days, and that is without a staking ETF being approved.
“We have seen $8 billion in net inflows through DeFi bridges into Ethereum mainnet over the last three months and a sizeable increase in Ethereum ETF inflows, despite BTC ETF seeing outflows,” Apollo Capital’s chief investment officer, Henrik Andersson, told Cointelegraph.
“This demonstrates interest from onchain natives and institutions,” he added.
Tron founder Justin Sun also recently removed around $600 million worth of ETH from the Aave DeFi lending platform, causing a brief depeg in stETH (STETH), Lido’s liquid staking token, and a sharp drop in liquidity on Aave.
This may have added to the exit queue as panicked yield farmers attempted to convert stETH back to ETH, or sell it on secondary markets, observed Marcin Kazmierczak, co-founder at RedStone staking platform.
