Staking activity on Ethereum has been gaining traction in recent months, even though the staking rate has declined to the lowest on record. This coincides with a rapid increase in restaking, a relatively new staking method introduced by EigenLayer and adopted by liquid restaking protocol Ether.fi.
Ethereum’s Validator Queue Reaches Highest Level Since September
The Validator Queue, which indicates the number of validators waiting to stake on the Ethereum network, has been hovering above 15,000 at the beginning of April, reaching the highest level since September 2023.
For those unfamiliar, the validator queue is imposed by Ethereum to balance its Proof of Stake (PoS) algorithm. Essentially, it requires validators to wait for a period before they could join or exit the network, therefore avoiding sudden changes in Ethereum’s security in the case of a rapid influx or exodus of ETH.
Today, over 15,000 validators each with at least 32 ETH (the minimum requirement to become a validator) are waiting to join, suggesting an increasing interest in staking. On the other side, only a few validators are waiting to exit.
This means that validators will soon bring $1.8 billion worth of ETH to secure the network, and this will become available for restaking through platforms like EigenLayer and Ether.fi.
Meanwhile, the total number of active validators is getting closer to the 1 million mark, currently at 980k.
On April 8, there was a record number of over 31.3 million ETH staked.
Restaking Platforms Likely to Be Main Drivers
The interest in Ethereum staking is increasing despite the fact that the reward rate fell to a record low of 3.33% on March 29.
This is explained by a surge in restaking activity, as ETH stakers using platforms like EigenLayer benefit from an additional stream of rewards besides pure staking.
Total value locked on EigenLayer and Ether.fi has reached a record of $13.7 billion and $3.9 billion, respectively.
Stay on top of things:
Subscribe to our newsletter using this link – we won’t spam!
