At present, the number of validators waiting to withdraw their funds from Ethereum (ETH) staking has reached nearly 16,000, setting a historic record for this cryptocurrency. According to information from ValidatorQueue, the total volume of funds awaiting withdrawal exceeds 510,000 ETH, which is approximately equivalent to 1.1 billion dollars.

The process of processing withdrawal requests currently takes about five days, while the full withdrawal cycle can extend for more than two weeks. In contrast, there are only 85 people in the queue to enter ETH staking, with a processing time of about 40 minutes.

This significant bottleneck in the staking system arose as a result of events related to the bankruptcy of the crypto lender Celsius. On January 5th, the company announced its intention to withdraw 470 million dollars worth of ETH from staking, which, according to them, should help compensate for losses incurred during restructuring.

Despite this, Celsius is not the main reason for such a long queue. According to Nansen, this crypto lender accounts for only 32% of the total volume of funds awaiting withdrawal. The majority, namely 54%, is associated with the activities of the staking provider Figment.

Tom Van, an analyst from 21 Shares, pointed out a possible connection between Figment and Celsius. He noted that a portion of Figment's funds might belong to Celsius, based on their previous operations in June, when Celsius redistributed 197,000 ETH through Figment after purchasing 428,000 stablecoins from Lido.

Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, expressed concern last week about the high load on the blockchain. He proposed simplifying the staking mechanism to increase user participation. Buterin suggested three solutions: creating exclusively decentralized pools for staking, dividing stakers into 'heavy' and 'light' categories, and reducing the total number of required signatures to decrease the load on the system.