The right-back queue, which has been straining the staking ecosystem on the Ethereum (ETH) network for months, has finally been completely cleared.
The congestion that has lasted since September has ended after almost four months, marking a “return to normalcy” for staking protocols and the DeFi ecosystem.
The security mechanism in question was disabled when Kiln, a major Ethereum staker, withdrew all validators from the network after hackers exploited a vulnerability in its staking infrastructure. This development led to weeks-long delays in staking withdrawals, creating significant operational problems, particularly for platforms that stake ETH on behalf of users.
Kirill Kutakov, co-founder of the liquid staking protocol Stakewise, stated that cryptocurrency markets are pricing in the “time risk” created by the exit queue, and that the longer the queue, the greater the likelihood of a price drop for liquid staking tokens. According to the analyst, once the exit queue clears, the probability of these tokens trading at a discount also decreases.
The streamlined queue also allows leveraged Ethereum staking strategies in DeFi to be terminated faster and at a lower cost. This stands out as a factor that increases market efficiency.
Ethereum’s exit queue functions as a fundamental part of network security. The mechanism limits the amount of ETH that can exit the network based on total staked assets. Currently, this limit is approximately 57,600 ETH per day.
Clearing the exit queue also provided significant relief for Rocket Pool, the third-largest liquid staking protocol managing $1.8 billion in staked ETH. Repositioning validators for node operators will now be much easier ahead of the protocol’s planned Saturn update in early February.
While the exit queue has eased, there’s now a significant increase in the queue for new validators to join the network. According to Beaconcha.in data, the amount of ETH queuing for staking has increased by approximately 300% since December 24th, exceeding 1.7 million ETH. New validators are currently having to wait more than 30 days to join the network.
*This is not investment advice.
