Ethereum Exit Queue Surges to Yearly Peak Amid MetaMask Security Incident
The Ethereum exit queue has seen a significant surge in recent days, reaching a yearly peak on October 2. According to CoinDesk's analysis, the queue rose from approximately 166,000 ETH on September 29 to 851,000 ETH on October 2. This increase is largely attributed to MetaMask's temporary deactivation of its validators after a security incident.
MetaMask, a company known for its crypto wallet, also operates validators for Lido, which pools users' ETH and puts it into staking. After the security incident announced on September 30, MetaMask began deactivating the affected validators. In its statement on October 1, MetaMask said it had found no evidence that wallets or customer funds were affected.
The exit queue is swollen with the withdrawn ETH, which is estimated to be worth over $2 billion. As of October 5, the amount waiting to exit had fallen to 786,000 ETH, with an estimated wait time of 14 days.
Lido estimates that the last affected MetaMask validators will exit staking by October 7. Once the balances are withdrawn and the ETH is placed back in the entry queue, the entire process could take up to 45 days. Validators will not earn staking rewards while inactive.
On the entry side, about 1.5 million ETH, or roughly $4 billion in assets, is waiting in the queue. The estimated time for new validators to become active is 25 days, a decrease compared to the 35-day wait time seen at the beginning of September.