Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has addressed concerns about the lengthy wait times for withdrawing staked coins.
As of September 18, 2.49 million ETH are awaiting withdrawal, with the full unlocking of this amount expected to take over 43 days.
This figure is at an all-time high, causing unease within the community. In a now-deleted post, Galaxy Digital’s head of DeFi, Michael Marcantonio, described the length of the staking exit queue as “alarming.”
He compared Ethereum to Solana, where withdrawals take only two days.
“It’s unclear how a network that takes 45 days to return assets can be a suitable candidate to drive a new era of global capital markets,” Marcantonio noted.
Buterin later joined the discussion, noting that exiting staking is “more like a soldier deciding to quit the army.”
It’s more like a soldier deciding to quit the army.
Staking is about taking on a solemn duty to defend the chain. Friction in quitting is part of the deal. An army cannot hold together if any percent of it can suddenly leave at any time.
That’s not to say that the current…
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) September 17, 2025
“Staking is about taking on a solemn duty to defend the blockchain. Friction in quitting is part of the deal. An army cannot remain intact if any percentage of it can suddenly leave at any time,” he explained.
Buterin acknowledged that the current queue structure is not entirely optimal. However, he added that “naively reducing constants” would make the chain significantly less secure for nodes that rarely exit the network.
Loyal Users
Marcantonio faced a wave of criticism for his post, with many community members rushing to defend Ethereum.
Former ConsenSys product manager Jimmy Ragosa stated that the Galaxy executive’s criticism of ETH only succeeded in damaging business relationships with other companies.
“It seems Galaxy forced its DeFi head to delete all his FUD posts related to Ethereum. [Marcantonio] was involved in insanely mean psychological operations, but I am categorically against corporate censorship,” noted lawyer Gabriel Shapiro.
FogoChain co-founder Robert Sags took a nuanced stance, comparing staking to banking. In his view, both 45 days and two days are too long to wait for withdrawals.
“Exiting staking is not the same as withdrawing client funds from a bank. It’s akin to withdrawing risk/venture capital,” countered user chainyoda.
On September 15, the Ethereum network celebrated three years since the activation of The Merge update. A key milestone was the blockchain’s transition to the Proof-of-Stake algorithm and the introduction of staking.
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