Ethereum staking exit queue hits 786,275 ETH, the longest wait of 2026
Validators leaving Ethereum face a wait of almost 14 days after MetaMask's precautionary exits, while 1.46 million ETH is lined up to enter staking.
ETHEREUM
Daniel Hartley
10/5/20261 min read
Ethereum's validator exit queue reached 786,275 ETH on October 5, with an estimated wait of 13 days and 16 hours, the longest exit delay of 2026, according to KuCoin News. The queue had jumped from about 166,000 ETH on September 29 to about 851,000 ETH on October 2 before easing slightly.
The main driver was MetaMask's precautionary exit of validators after an infrastructure security incident. An independent estimate put the affected stake near 523,000 ETH across about 17,000 validators, a figure MetaMask has not confirmed. Liquid staking protocol Lido expects most of the exiting ETH to be restaked gradually, and the full cycle of exit, withdrawal and re-entry could take up to 45 days.
Demand to join staking still exceeds demand to leave. The entry queue held 1.46 million ETH with a wait of more than 25 days, after about 2 million ETH faced a roughly 35-day wait in early September. Both queues are limited by a churn of 256 ETH per epoch. In total, 43.7 million ETH, or 35.76% of supply, is staked at an estimated APR of 2.63%.
Source: KuCoin News.