Ethereum Staking Bottleneck Costs Depositors Over $350K Daily in Lost Rewards

Ethereum's record-breaking staking participation has led to a significant bottleneck in the activation queue, causing over $350,000 in lost rewards daily for depositors waiting for up to 36 days.

The backlog of 2.059 million ETH on August 30th is estimated to be around 35 days and 18 hours long, with a potential consensus reward loss of around 141-148 ETH per day, worth approximately $348,000 to $366,000 at an ETH price near $2,466.

This imbalance between demand for staking capacity and Ethereum's ability to activate deposits has been ongoing since the entry backlog declined from over 4 million ETH earlier this year.