Large-scale ETH unstaking triggers a redemption wave, with the destination of $11.3 billion in funds becoming the focus

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has commented on the increasingly severe issue of staking withdrawal queues, noting that the network's staking exit queue has now extended to over six weeks.

On September 18, he posted on X, stating that this mechanism is a carefully considered design choice rather than a flaw, and compared it to military discipline.

Buterin emphasized that staking is not a casual act but a commitment to safeguarding the network. From this perspective, friction mechanisms such as exit delays actually serve as safety guardrails.

"If anyone in the army could suddenly leave at any time, the army would not be able to maintain cohesion," he wrote, pointing out that Ethereum's reliability depends on ensuring that validators cannot instantly abandon their duties.

However, Buterin also acknowledged that the current design is not perfect. He explained: "This is not to say that the current staking queue design is the optimal solution, but if the threshold is blindly lowered, it would significantly reduce the credibility of the chain for any node that is not frequently online."

Buterin's views coincide with those of EigenLayer restaking protocol founder Sreeram Kannan.

In a post on September 17, Kannan referred to Ethereum's lengthy exit period as a "conservative parameter," considering it a crucial security measure.

He explained that the waiting period can effectively guard against worst-case scenarios, such as validators coordinating attacks and participants attempting to exit collectively before facing slashing penalties.

In light of this, Kannan warned: "Unstaking must never be instantaneous."

He further explained that if the process were shortened to a few days, Ethereum could be exposed to attacks that exhaust its security assumptions. In contrast, a longer window allows for the detection and punishment of malicious behaviors such as double-signing, ensuring that malicious validators cannot easily evade responsibility.

Kannan specifically pointed out that this buffer mechanism allows inactive nodes to reconnect and periodically verify the correct fork.

He emphasized that without such a mechanism, competing forks could all claim legitimacy, making it impossible for offline nodes to determine authenticity when reconnecting.

He concluded: "Ethereum does not adopt a fixed long-term unstaking mechanism, but is designed so that when a small amount of staking exits within a specific period, it can be processed instantly. However, if a large amount of staking applies to exit simultaneously, the queue will accumulate, and in the worst case, it could last for several months."

This strong defense comes as Ethereum's exit queue hits a historic high. Data from the Ethereum validator queue shows that the current withdrawal backlog has reached 43 days, involving 2.48 million ETH (approximately $11.3 billion) waiting to be withdrawn.