Ethereum Staking Queue Keeps 1.5 Million ETH Stuck for 25 Days

About 1.5 million ETH, worth roughly $4 billion, was waiting to enter Ethereum’s staking queue on Monday, Oct. 5, with an estimated wait of 25 days. That was down from about 2 million ETH and a 35-day wait in early September.

The shorter queue did not remove the constraint behind it. Ethereum still processes validator entries and exits through separate queues, each limited to about 57,600 ETH per day.

Why Ethereum Limits Validator Entry and Exit

Staking requires holders to commit ETH to validators, the computers that check Ethereum transactions. The network caps how quickly validators can join or leave to prevent sudden changes in network security.

Those limits matter when demand changes by more than one day’s capacity. A large batch of validators cannot enter immediately, so their ETH remains in the entry queue. Coins that leave Ethereum’s staking system also pass through a separate withdrawal process before returning to their owners’ wallets.

A 1.5 million ETH entry queue is larger than several days of entry capacity. The 25-day estimate therefore reflects the protocol’s processing limit, not a promise that every deposit becomes active at the same moment.

MetaMask Drove the Exit Queue Higher

The exit side was moving faster. About 786,000 ETH, worth just over $2 billion, was waiting to leave on Monday, with an estimated wait of nearly 14 days.

The queue rose from about 166,000 ETH on Sept. 29 to roughly 851,000 ETH by Oct. 2. That was an increase of more than fivefold in three days. The Oct. 2 figure represented about 2% of the 43.6 million ETH staked on Ethereum.

MetaMask disclosed a security incident on Sept. 30 and began taking affected validators out of service. Its Oct. 1 update said the investigation had found no indication that wallets or customer funds were affected. MetaMask also runs validators for Lido, which pools users’ ETH for staking.

Ethereum researcher Kaden estimated that the precautionary exits covered about 17,000 validators holding roughly 523,000 ETH. MetaMask has not confirmed those figures.

Restaking Could Take Up to 45 Days

Lido expects the affected ether to re-enter staking gradually. The process starts when validators leave, continues as their balances are withdrawn and ends when the ETH enters the staking queue again. Lido estimates that the full process could take up to about 45 days, with affected validators missing staking rewards while they are out of service.

The company expects the last affected MetaMask validators to stop staking by Oct. 7. Their ETH would then join the entry queue, adding to the wait already facing other validators.

Lido also said stETH holders did not need to take action. stETH represents a holder’s stake in the service.

The near-term queue would stop rising if the exit process slowed and no additional large validator groups entered the system. A further increase in exit requests would raise that risk, while the 25-day entry estimate would also be invalidated if the daily processing limit or incoming demand changed.