Ethereum staking exit wait balloons to 43 days

Ethereum’s staking exit queue has ballooned past 2 million ETH after Kiln, one of the industry’s largest enterprise staking firms, began shutting down all its validators this week.

Validator Queue data shows roughly 2.46 million ETH lined up to leave the network, compared with about 800,000 ETH waiting to be staked.

This means timelines have stretched for investors as those trying to exit face a prolonged wait period of around 43 days, while those looking to stake new assets face a delay of nearly two weeks.

The congestion reverses a trend seen earlier in September, when the entry queue briefly surpassed withdrawals for the first time since July.

Why are Kiln’s validators exiting?

Kiln’s exit stems from fallout surrounding an exploit affecting SwissBorg, which recently lost $40 million on Solana. SwissBorg identified a vulnerability in an API that the staking service provider provided.

In response to this issue, Kiln CEO Laszlo Szabo said the firm chose to exit its Ethereum validators to safeguard its users’ funds.

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According to him:

“Exiting validators is the responsible step to protect stakers, and we are monitoring the process closely to ensure the security and reliability of our services.”

The firm stated that the staged withdrawal would begin today, Sept. 10, and could take between 10 and 42 days to complete. During that time, rewards will continue to accumulate, though it may take stakers up to nine days to fully access their withdrawn ETH.

Kiln has paused certain services while reinforcing its infrastructure alongside the validator exit. Once its internal review concludes, the company plans to release a post-mortem.

Ernest Oppetit, Co-founder and CPO at Kiln, said:

“We are committed to transparent communication and will continue to provide updates until the exit process is fully complete.”

According to Dune Analytics data, Kiln ranks among the largest institutional staking providers with over 17,700 active validators, nearly 4,000 unique stakers, and assets worth more than $2.4 billion.

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