The Ethereum exit queue has fallen near zero for the first time since mid-2025, while the entry queue has surged to multi-month highs. Data from Beaconcha.in shows the current exit queue sitting at just 224 ETH, with a wait time of roughly six minutes. This is a huge decline from its peak of around 2.67 million ETH in mid-September, when large numbers of validators were lining up to unstake.
At the same time, the validator entry queue surged to 1.3 million ETH, its highest level since mid-November. This suggests that there is renewed demand for Ethereum staking. BitMine, the world’s largest Ether digital asset treasury, has ramped up staking aggressively over the past few weeks, beginning staking ETH on Dec. 26 and adding another 82,560 ETH—worth roughly $260 million—to the entry queue on Jan. 3. In total, BitMine has now staked 659,219 ETH, valued at about $2.1 billion at current prices.
Analysts interpret this divergence as a meaningful shift in market behavior. Rostyk, chief technology officer at Asymetrix and founder of ETHKyiv, said the exit queue is now “basically empty,” and added that “no one wants to sell their staked ETH.” The dynamic suggests validators are more comfortable keeping ETH locked up rather than freeing it for sale, while Tevis notes that ETH exchange reserves are at ten-year lows, indicating shrinking readily sellable supply. Grayscale began activating staking across its Ethereum products on Oct. 6, working through institutional custodians and third-party validator providers, which makes ETHE and the Grayscale Ethereum Mini Trust ETF among the first US-listed spot crypto ETPs to gain exposure to Ethereum staking yields, enabled by a regulatory framework outside the Investment Company Act of 1940.
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