TL;DR

• Remember back in April when ​we wrote​ about the 'Shapella' upgrade? The Shanghai and Capella Ethereum network upgrades that gave investors the ability to withdraw their ​staked​ ETH for the first time?

• There is now a huge backlog of people wanting to either stake their ETH for the first time; or re-stake their ETH to earn that sweet, sweet, ~5% guaranteed annual return.

• All of this has led to some Ethereum core developers to propose raising the validator limit from 32 ETH, to 2,048 ETH.

Full Story

Alright, ready to nerd out?

Good.

So, remember back in April when ​we wrote​ about the 'Shapella' upgrade? The Shanghai and Capella Ethereum network upgrades that gave investors the ability to withdraw their ​staked​ ETH for the first time?

We weren't sure what was going to happen...

Would everyone withdraw at once? Or would they keep their ETH staked until the value of their ETH increases to a point of profitability?

Turns out, it was a combo of both.

More importantly though, a few months later, there is now a huge backlog of people wanting to either stake their ETH for the first time; or re-stake their ETH to earn that sweet, sweet, ~5% guaranteed annual return.

(Based, at least in part, on the relatively low interest rates offered by banks at the moment).

When we say 'a huge backlog of people wanting to stake their ETH,' we mean thousands. No, tens of thousands. Actually, ​over ninety thousand​.

Not only that, at the time of writing it's taking over 44 days to activate a new Ethereum node.

What's the solution?

All of this has led to some Ethereum core developers to propose raising the validator limit from 32 ETH, to 2,048 ETH.

(In other words, instead of requiring 32 ETH to be staked, they'd require 2,048 ETH to be staked).

While a 6300% increase seems pretty dramatic, the numbers suggest that's the best way to reduce the activation queue back down to manageable levels.

Unfortunately, by increasing the validator limit by that much, it would become prohibitively expensive for individuals to stake ETH.

It would also set a precedent of being able to change the validator limit based on supply and demand which could spark further debate in the future.

It's just a proposal for now - and it's great to see the core developers thinking about what the community wants.

Let's see how this pans out.