If you’ve been watching Ethereum lately, you’ve probably noticed a lot of people trying to pull their ETH out of staking. Over the last 48 hours there’s been a big spike in exit requests — roughly 220,000 ETH asked to leave in the past three days. That pushes the total waiting to get out to about 728,600 ETH (roughly $3.3 billion). For context, that’s the second-biggest exit line we’ve seen; the record was about 743,000 ETH back on July 26.
Why now? Simple: the price popped. ETH pushed toward $4,800 recently, and the whole market had a big rally — Ethereum alone added more than $150 billion in market cap in the first two weeks of August. Big holders are cashing some profits or shifting strategies, so unstaking demand shot up. Think of it like a crowded exit after the headliner finishes a concert — everyone wants out at once.
- Unstaking speed: validators are facing nearly a 13-day wait to fully exit right now.
- Historical comparison: before July 2025 you could usually get out within a day; this month the wait has stayed above a week.
- Staking inflows: about 80,000 ETH (around $360 million) was added to staking over the last three days — meaningful, but much smaller than the outflow.
Despite the drama, the network looks healthy. Active validators are at an all-time high — over 1 million now, up about 20% since the start of 2024. Institutional interest seems to be coming back too, with big players boosting their ETH treasury targets. That demand helps explain the recent price push and why staking flows are getting so noisy.
“You can leave, but you might be standing there longer than you expected.”
I saw a thread where someone compared exiting staking to waiting in line at a busy coffee shop — same idea here. If you’re thinking about staking or unstaking, remember: timing matters, but so do your goals. Don’t get swayed only by short-term pumps.
