Ethereum unstaking queue surges 392% since October start

Ethereum unstaking has jumped 392% since the start of October, according to data circulated on X. By October 2, roughly 850,000 ETH was lined up to leave the network’s validator set. That is the longest exit line Ethereum has seen all year. It happened in the same week that MetaMask Staking told users part of its infrastructure had been compromised. What is driving the exit line By October 2, the estimated wait to exit had reached about 14.77 days. In late September, exits had been sitting in the low-to-mid 100,000s ETH range. The queue sat at approximately 850,000 to 850,736 ETH at its peak. Total staked ETH stood at roughly 43.6 million across about 878,000 active validators. The pending exits therefore represented close to 2% of all staked supply. The MetaMask Staking incident On September 30, MetaMask Staking disclosed a compromise of its infrastructure. Block rewards of about 0.36 ETH across 18 blocks were briefly diverted. MetaMask said no user wallets or sensitive data were affected. MetaMask moved to exit nearly 17,000 validators holding approximately 523,000 ETH, a significant share of which was tied to Lido’s operations. The exits were framed as a precaution and were expe...