Ethereum’s validator exit queue surged to over 2.6 million ETH this week, up from around 617,000 ETH seven days earlier.

The dramatic increase represents validators requesting to withdraw their staked Ethereum from the network’s proof-of-stake consensus mechanism. Validators must enter an exit queue when they want to unstake their 32 ETH deposits and stop participating in network validation.

The queue processes a limited number of validator exits per day based on the total number of active validators on the network. When demand to exit exceeds the daily processing capacity, validators must wait in line to complete their withdrawals.