ETH Unstaking Requests Now Face a 17-Day Wait Time

Since the successful Shanghai upgrade on April 13, the surge in withdrawal requests has extended the ETH unstaking queue to up to 17 days.

ETH Unstaking Requests Now Face a 17-Day Wait Time

According to analyst Niklas Polk from Nansen, as of now, when a validator requests to unstake their ETH, it takes approximately 25 minutes to enter the queue. After that, the validator will wait an additional 11.7 days for their turn to be processed. The processing phase itself takes another 27 hours. Finally, once the withdrawal request is processed, it takes an extra 4.25 days to complete.

ETH Unstaking Process. Source: Nansen

In summary, if a validator joins the unstaking queue today, they will have to wait 17 days to retrieve their ETH. This figure has increased from 14 days at the end of last week.

The wait time will be even longer if the validator decides to withdraw their entire stake, including shutting down their node and leaving the Beacon Chain. As of the time of writing, there are 28,809 validators (about 5% of the total 575,359 validators on the network) who have decided to exit with their entire stake and rewards.

On the other hand, for those who choose to withdraw only a portion of their rewards, the processing and transfer time is approximately 4.27 days.

Currently, over 1 million ETH has been withdrawn and reintroduced into the market, according to Beaconcha.in. However, the network is also seeing a surge in ETH being staked, surpassing the amount being withdrawn recently. This increase is attributed to validators actively withdrawing their staked ETH only to re-stake it in liquid staking protocols like Lido or Rocket Pool for greater liquidity flexibility.

ETH Unstaked as of 11:45 AM April 19, 2023. Source: Beaconcha.in

Exchanges Kraken and Binance currently hold the largest shares of the withdrawal queue, at 42.4% and 20.3% respectively, followed by Coinbase with 13.7%. Meanwhile, the largest staking protocol, Lido Finance, has yet to enable ETH withdrawals for investors and is expected to delay this feature until mid-May.

The Shanghai upgrade has received widespread praise for its smooth implementation. The market has followed suit with a general upward trend following positive news, with BTC rising to $30,222 and ETH starting to climb a week before Shanghai, now fluctuating around $2,090.