ETH staking queue hits 1.5 million, with entry wait time at 25 days

About 1.5 million ETH, worth roughly $4 billion, is waiting to be staked on Ethereum, with the estimated time to begin staking now around 25 days, CoinDesk reported. In early September, about 2 million ETH was in the queue, pushing the estimated wait time to as long as 35 days. By contrast, about 786,000 ETH, worth more than $2 billion, is waiting to be withdrawn from staking, with an estimated wait time of about 14 days. The withdrawal queue surged from about 166,000 ETH on Sept. 29 to about 851,000 ETH on Oct. 2. CoinDesk said much of the increase was attributed to MetaMask’s large-scale withdrawal of validators it had operated through Lido (LDO) as a precaution following a recent security incident. Lido expects the ETH to be gradually restaked after completing the withdrawal process.