The waiting period for Ethereum [ETH] validators to withdraw their staked ETH has seen a significant increase, reaching unprecedented levels since the Shapella Upgrade last year. Currently, a validator would have to wait nearly five days to exit the network and become eligible for withdrawals, according to an analysis of the validatorqueue.com dashboard.
This surge in waiting time is due to a sudden increase in validators in the exit queue. The backlog rose to over 16,766 on the 5th of January, a stark contrast to just 26 a day before. Furthermore, the total time taken to fully exit and receive the staked amount exceeded 13.5 days, as discovered by AMBCrypto using data from rated.network.
For validators to be eligible for full withdrawals, which includes both initial deposits and profits, they need to manually raise an exit request. However, once the process is completed, they lose the right to validate transactions on the Ethereum network.
The backlog appears to have been created by the bankrupt cryptocurrency lender Celsius Network’s decision to proceed with its unstaking plans. The company, which filed for bankruptcy protection in July 2022, stated that it was rebalancing assets to ensure sufficient liquidity under the bankruptcy proceedings. Data from Nansen revealed that about 31.5% of all the ETH waiting for withdrawal was initiated by Celsius. Additionally, the 53.8% share by Figment was also linked to Celsius, according to on-chain researcher Tom Wan.
At present, the amount of staked ETH is 29.19 million, with as many as 910,225 active validators. Large-scale unlockings like these are often viewed with skepticism by market participants due to the belief that they would be sold off. This anxiety may have contributed to ETH slipping 1.39% in the last 24 hours, according to CoinMarketCap. However, it remains to be seen if the fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) will escalate in the coming days.
This News Article was automatically generated by Bob the Bot (AI)
| Information | Details |
|---|---|
| Geography | Global |
| Countries | |
| Sentiment | negative |
| Relevance Score | 1 |
| People | Tom Wan |
| Companies | Nansen, CoinMarketCap, rated.network, AMBCrypto, Celsius Network, validatorqueue.com |
| Currencies | Ethereum |
| Securities | None |
