Ethereum Exit Queue Clears As Celsius Rebalances Assets

The waitlist for Ethereum validators moving to exit the network has again cleared after spiking to record highs two weeks ago as Celsius moved to unstake its sizable Ether holdings.

According to Validator Queue, just 13 stakers are waiting to leave from the network, down from a record of 16,766 on Jan. 5 — significantly beating out the previous high of 3,829. The network offboards validators at a rate of 13 every epoch, with each epoch lasting for 6.4 minutes.

Roughly 28.69M ETH is currently staked on the Beacon Chain, down from an all-time high of just over 29M on Jan. 4, according to Beaconcha.in.

The spike coincided with Celsius, the failed centralized crypto lender, announcing plans to unstake its ETH holdings. Celsius said it is in the process of recalling and rebalancing in preparation to distribute assets to creditors.

In August, Celsius revealed plans to distribute nearly $2B worth of BTC and possibly ETH to its creditors. The company filed for bankruptcy in July 2022. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission ruled that Celsius misappropriated more than $4B worth of customer funds before suspending withdrawals in June 2022.

The company sent $125M worth of ETH to digital asset exchanges over the past seven days — presumably to sell — including $95.5M to Coinbase. Data from Arkham Intelligence indicates Celsius’s wallets still hold $1.37B worth of Ether despite the hefty transfers. ETH is Celsius’s largest holding, followed by $411.3M in BTC, $129.7M worth of its native CEL token, and $49.6M worth of MATIC.