Ether (ETH) fell sharply on Wednesday, dropping over 7% from its 2025 peak as more validators lined up to unstake their assets.
The price of ETH dipped below $3,550 in late trading after reaching a seven-month high of $3,844 earlier in the week.
Data from ValidatorQueue revealed that the Ethereum validator exit queue swelled to its largest level in 18 months, with 644,330 ETH – valued at approximately $2.34 billion – waiting to be withdrawn. The current exit queue indicates an 11-day wait for validators to complete their unstaking process.
Something big is happening in Ethereum staking.
The Ethereum validator exit queue just hit its highest level in over a year – more than 520,000 ETH that’s over $1.9 billion at current prices, lined up to leave.
This queue will take ~19 days to fully clear.
Thread: 👇 pic.twitter.com/aHEQfYe5SH
— everstake.eth (💙,💛) (@eth_everstake) July 23, 2025
Staking protocol Everstake noted that the recent surge in exits is not necessarily a signal of panic among validators. “It’s more of a shift,” the firm explained, suggesting that validators may be rotating operators, restaking with different providers, or optimising their positions rather than abandoning Ethereum altogether.
The last similar spike in exit requests occurred in January 2024, coinciding with a 15% decline in ETH prices during the second half of that month.
While some analysts warn that unstaking could place short-term sell pressure on the market, Everstake added that exits are partly driven by investors looking to secure profits following ETH’s 50% rally over the past month.
Despite the rise in withdrawals, there is still robust demand to stake ETH. Approximately 390,000 ETH, worth about $1.2 billion, is currently queued for staking. This leaves the net amount of ETH being unstaked at around 255,000 ETH.
The growing entry queue reflects sustained institutional interest, with treasury management firms such as SharpLink and Bitmine reportedly increasing their ETH holdings since early June to capture staking yields.
Ethereum’s staking ecosystem remains strong, with the number of active validators at an all-time high of just below 1.1 million. Currently, around 35.7 million ETH is staked on the network, representing nearly 30% of its total circulating supply, valued at roughly $130 billion.
At the time of writing, ETH had recovered slightly to trade at $3,643, as traders continue to weigh profit-taking pressures against persistent institutional accumulation.
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