Ethereum ETH $3 228 24h volatility: 1.8% Market cap: $389.21 B Vol. 24h: $25.03 B staking demand is once again on the rise, with a major drop in the exit queue for the first time since July 2025. Market analysts noted that this could ease the near-term selling pressure on ETH. Moreover, institutional players like Tom Lee’s BitMine Technologies (NASDAQ: BMNR) have increased their ETH staking recently.
Ethereum Staking Validator Exit Queue On Decline
According to the data provided by beaconcha.in, the current validator exit queue stands at just 32 ETH, with a wait time of roughly one minute. This represents a decline of about 99.9% from the mid-September 2025 peak, when more than 2.67 million ETH were queued for exit.
Ethereum Validator Exit Queue | Source: Validator Queue
At the same time, the staking entry queue has risen to approximately 1.3 million ETH. This is the highest level reported since mid-Nov. 2025, which shows a renewed interest from participants looking to stake ETH.
Commenting on the shift, Rostyk, chief technology officer at Asymetrix, said the exit queue is now “basically empty.” He added that a very negligible number of stakers want to withdraw their ETH.
Experts noted that the revival of ETH staking demand could reduce the selling pressure on ETH, driving potential price upside.
$ETH Exchange reserves at 10 year lows. Selling pressure drying up, and now we’re seeing validator entry queue far outpace exit queues (driven by $BMNR and ETFs staking their ETH for yield)
Supply shock induced squeeze incoming?
— Tevis (@FunOfInvesting) January 5, 2026
BitMine Accelerates ETH Staking, Grayscale Offers First Reward
The world’s largest ETH treasury firm BitMine (BMNR) has accelerated its ETH staking activity in recent weeks. This shows rising institutional demand, tightening the overall ETH supply in the market.
The company began staking Ether on Dec. 26 and added another 82,560 ETH, worth nearly $260 million. According to data from Arkham Intelligence, BitMine staked an additional 186,336 ETH, worth $605 million, in the last 12 hours.
Tom Lee(@fundstrat)'s #Bitmine staked another 186,336 $ETH($604.5M) in the past 4 hours.
In total, #Bitmine has now staked 779,488 $ETH($2.51B).
— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) January 6, 2026
This latest move brings BitMine’s total staked Ether to about 779,488 ETH, representing more than $2.5 billion locked into the Ethereum network. The staked ETH is removed from active trading circulation and instead earns staking yield.
It leads to tighter ETH liquidity that can drive ETH price higher. As of press time, ETH is trading 1.59% up at $3,219 with daily trading volume surging 50% to over $25 billion.
Bhushan is a FinTech enthusiast and holds a good flair in understanding financial markets. His interest in economics and finance draw his attention towards the new emerging Blockchain Technology and Cryptocurrency markets. He is continuously in a learning process and keeps himself motivated by sharing his acquired knowledge. In free time he reads thriller fictions novels and sometimes explore his culinary skills.
