The 1.9 billion ETH unstaking wave: The internal circulation of the ecosystem is digesting the sell pressure.

Author: Deep Tide TechFlow

Original Title: Ethereum's 1.9 Billion Unstaking Wave: Profit Taking or a New Ecological Starting Point?

Whenever the market is good, FUD is inevitable.

Today, a piece of news has once again raised concerns about the price of ETH:

Validators on the Ethereum network are queuing up to unstake ETH.

As a representative of the PoS consensus mechanism, staking ETH is technically used to maintain the security of the entire Ethereum network, and economically, it can also generate additional returns from staking, locking the liquidity of ETH in the staking pool.

According to the data from the Validator Queue, as of July 23, approximately 521,252 ETH have accumulated in the Ethereum validators' exit queue, currently being unstaked, with a market value of about $1.93 billion, and the waiting time for unstaking is over 9 days and 1 hour.

This is also the longest queue that validators have lined up in the past year when choosing to exit.

Since each validator typically stakes 32 ETH, this theoretically amounts to over 16,000 validators seeking to withdraw their stake. The large-scale queue for choosing to unstake raises some warning signs.

Take Profit?

Are the whales and institutions selling ETH to take profits?

The surge in Ethereum's unstaking may be partly related to the recent price increase.

Starting from the low point in early April 2025 (around the $1,500-$2,000 range), ETH has experienced a strong rebound, with a cumulative increase of 160% to date. Specifically, on July 21, ETH reached a high of $3,812, which is the peak in the past seven months.

This rapid rise often prompts some investors to choose to take profits, especially those early stakers who may decide to lock in profits after seeing returns, rather than continue to hold.

From a historical perspective, this model is not new.

From January to February 2024, after the ETH/BTC ratio increased by 25% within a week, a similar scale of unstaking wave occurred, leading to a short-term price drop of 10%-15%. However, it was also around the same period that Celsius went bankrupt and liquidated, with 460,000 ETH being unstaked in a short time, causing a queue congestion for validators exiting the entire ETH network for about a week.

Not selling pressure

Unlike before, although the queue for ETH unstaking is long this time and the amount being unstaked is large, it does not directly mean selling pressure.

First, looking at the data from the Validator Queue, on July 23, there were 520,000 ETH queued for unbonding, but at the same time, 360,000 ETH entered the staking queue.

The net amount of ETH withdrawn from the Ethereum network will significantly decrease due to the offset.

Secondly, institutional behavior also plays a certain buffering role.

Data from July 22 shows that the total inflow of ETH spot ETFs from various institutions in the open market reached 3.1 billion USD, significantly higher in absolute value than the 520,000 ETH (1.9 billion USD) queued for unstaking that day.

Moreover, this is the net inflow of the ETF for one day, not to mention that there is still a 9-day queue for validators exiting.

At the same time, unpledging does not necessarily mean that it will be sold.

In the context of the current rise in ETH, the concentrated release of staking is likely due to institutions adjusting their custody services or shifting towards crypto treasury strategies. To put it more plainly, this means changing custodians for ETH in search of greater returns, rather than taking ETH out to sell.

On-chain, some of the unstaked ETH is more likely to be used for DeFi and NFT related activities. For example, it could be used as collateral to provide liquidity, or yesterday there were giant whales sweeping the floor of Crypto Punks.

In addition, the LST tokens on the chain often experience depegging, which also provides arbitrage opportunities for ETH — for example, the recent stETH to ETH ratio fell to 0.996 (a discount of about 0.04%), and weETH also showed similar fluctuations. Arbitrageurs profit by purchasing discounted LSTs and waiting for the 1:1 peg to be restored, a process that increases the demand for ETH.

Overall, unbonding seems more like an internal adjustment within the Ethereum ecosystem rather than a direct sell signal.

However, there are various speculations on social media, and the concentrated unlocking of staking does not necessarily mean selling pressure, but it is very likely to indicate a phenomenon known as "changing the major holder."

There are opinions that BlackRock, which is committed to promoting the entry of crypto assets into the mainstream financial sphere, has become the de facto major player of ETH. As of July, BlackRock has accumulated over 2 million ETH (worth approximately 6.9-8.9 billion USD), which accounts for about 1.5%-2% of the total supply of ETH (approximately 120 million ETH).

This is not a secret, but rather an open ETF asset management activity, so it is more like an institutional-level "transparent market maker"—holding and accumulating publicly through ETFs to promote institutional adoption of ETH, rather than manipulating the market.

The logic of switching the exchange is that when Ethereum shifts from a value consensus within the community to a broader consensus as a financial tool, it is already a very obvious trend that Wall Street is preparing to make a big move.

This speculation is not without reason; staking and unstaking may also be a conversion of the chip structure.

However, regardless, Ethereum's growth potential will continue to support its leadership position in the crypto space, and this wave of unstaking may just be the starting point of a new cycle.