Opinion: Waiting 43 days for Ethereum staking is not a clear bullish sign; an empty exit queue makes more sense

Comparing news, Thomas Brunner, head of escrow and staking business at Sygnum Bank, said that the number of Ethereum validators entering the queue has increased to about 2.5 million ETH, and new stakers will have to wait about 43 days to activate, but this data cannot simply be viewed as a bullish sign, because the backlog not only reflects institutional demand, but is also affected by the protocol mechanism.

Brunner pointed out that the Dencun upgrade reduced the daily validator entry quota to about 57,600 ETH, and the Pectra upgrade did not increase that amount. At the same time, Pectra allows a single validator to hold up to 2048 ETH and automatically compound interest. Large operators are adding additional stakes to existing validators. Even if only 1 ETH is added, they need to enter the same queue as the new staker. As a result, part of the current backlog comes from the reallocation and compounding of existing stakes, not all of it from the demand for new ETH.

In contrast, exiting the queue basically provides a more clear signal that it is empty. Brunner said: “Almost no one has released a pledge, which shows true confidence; entering the queue is measured both by demand and by infrastructure mechanisms. Currently, approximately 41.2 million ETH are pledged, accounting for 33.8% of the circulating supply.

He also said that institutions have not stopped participating due to the weakening price of ETH, and that many institutions have viewed staking benefits as native attributes of ETH. However, validator addresses, deposit addresses, and withdrawal documents can all be traced, and privacy issues are still the main obstacle for institutions to expand the scale of pledges.