validator

According to Decrypt, as large investors such as enterprises and exchanges choose to stake Ethereum for yield rather than sell during market rebounds, the number of Ethereum validators entering the queue has surged to approximately 3.4 million ETH, marking one of the longest staking queue records since the network transitioned to PoS, with an expected wait time of about 60 days.This figure has significantly increased from around 900,000 ETH in early January, indicating that major market participants are opting to lock up supply for yield.Industry feedback shows that current demand is primarily driven by large enterprises and exchanges seeking to generate returns on idle crypto assets. Analysts suggest that the narrative surrounding Ethereum's potential in payment infrastructure and AI-related applications may also be fueling this demand.

According to CoinDesk, DoubleZero, a crypto infrastructure startup co-founded by former Solana Foundation executive Austin Federa, will launch the second phase of its delegation program on March 9, reallocating 2.4 million SOL from its 13 million SOL pool to reward validators operating in underrepresented regions such as São Paulo, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Tokyo.Each region will receive up to 600,000 SOL in additional delegated staking incentives, aimed at reducing the increasingly concentrated geographical distribution of Solana validators in Europe and introducing the "multicast" data transmission capabilities widely used in traditional finance.Federa stated that one of the unintended consequences of blockchain acceleration is that validators are more likely to co-locate, similar to how early high-frequency trading on Wall Street competed to place servers close to the New York Stock Exchange.

HyperLiquid announced on the X platform that validators will vote around 8:00 UTC on February 23 (16:00 Beijing time) to decide whether to delist OM.If the validators vote to delist OM, traders should settle their positions to the 1-hour time-weighted spot oracle price before the delisting, while canceling all open orders. Therefore, it is necessary to close positions in advance to avoid automatic settlement, and no new orders will be accepted after the settlement is completed.

ValidatorQueue data shows that the Ethereum staking amount has surpassed 30% of the circulating supply, reaching 30.27%, marking a new milestone.Meanwhile, investors are still queuing in the validator queue to deposit $8 billion worth of pending staking tokens, also setting a historical high.

Data shows that the number of validator nodes on the Solana network has significantly decreased from a peak of 2,560 in March 2023 to the current 795, a drop of 68%, raising concerns in the market about the network's level of decentralization.Industry insiders point out that, in addition to clearing "zombie nodes," a more core reason is the continuous rise in operating costs + zero-fee competition among large nodes, which is systematically squeezing out small and medium-sized validators. An independent validator node operator stated that many small nodes are not bearish on Solana, but rather that the economic model has become unsustainable: "Without economic viability, decentralization becomes a charitable act." Meanwhile, Solana's Nakamoto Coefficient has dropped from 31 to 20 during the same period, a decline of about 35%, indicating that the control of staked SOL is concentrating in the hands of a few large nodes, reducing the network's level of decentralization.From a cost perspective: to maintain operation (excluding hardware and servers), a node needs at least $49,000 worth of SOL in the first year; approximately 401 SOL is required annually to pay for voting fees; and daily voting transaction costs can reach up to 1.1 SOL/day. The trend signals are clear: Solana is gradually evolving from a "broad participation node structure" to a structure dominated by large institutional nodes, which may have a profound impact on the network's security structure and governance patterns in the long term.

According to The Block, the number of daily active validators on Solana has fallen below 800, reaching levels not seen since 2021.This data represents a decline of over 65% from the peak of approximately 2,500 validators at the beginning of 2023. The volume of validator voting transactions has decreased from about 300,000 per day to 170,000, a drop of 40%. The main reason for the loss of validators is the change in economic incentives, including the gradual reduction of voting cost support provided by the Solana Foundation Delegation Program and the staking matching policy over time.Despite the contraction in the number of validators, non-voting transaction volumes, such as user-initiated DApp interactions and token transfers, remain stable at around 100,000,000 transactions per day.

According to Cointelegraph, Ethereum validator queue data shows that the exit queue has decreased from a peak of 2.67 million ETH in September 2025 to 0 ETH, while the entry queue has grown more than five times in the past month, reaching 2.6 million ETH, the highest level since July 2023.The waiting time for the entry queue has now been extended to 45 days, while the processing time for exiting ETH only takes a few minutes.

The Polygon Foundation announced on the X platform that the PIP-69 proposal has officially launched. Through this proposal, validator share tokens are now displayed as dPOL at a 1:1 ratio, aimed at increasing wallet visibility and expanding the utility of staked POL.dPOL has full ERC-20 functionality, simplifying the creation of liquid staking tokens (LSTs) for POL and enhancing DeFi composability. Users who have staked POL will see these tokens in their wallets, which may display as dPOL, dPOL1, or dPOLa4 depending on the wallet.

According to The Block, data shows that over 36 million ETH are currently staked on the Ethereum Beacon Chain, accounting for nearly 30% of the network's circulating supply, with a staked market value exceeding $11.8 billion, setting a new historical high. The previous highest record for the network's circulating supply percentage was 29.54%, which occurred in July 2025.In addition, the Ethereum validator set currently includes about 900,000 active validators, with another 2.3 million ETH waiting to join the validation queue. Meanwhile, the number of validators exiting the queue has remained near historical lows, indicating limited selling pressure from existing stakers.Market data shows that Ethereum's price has risen 11% this year, benefiting from the overall market uptrend, which has also injected momentum into staking activities.

According to Cointelegraph, the Bank of Italy simulated an extreme scenario where the price of Ether drops to zero, to demonstrate how the market risks of Ethereum's native token could translate into infrastructure and financial stability risks.In a new research paper titled "What If the Price of Ethereum Drops to Zero? How Cryptocurrency Market Risks Evolve into Infrastructure Risks," the bank's economist Claudia Biancotti explores how extreme shocks to the price of Ethereum could impact the cryptocurrency market. She believes that a portion of validators may rationally exit to slow down block production, weakening Ethereum's ability to withstand certain attacks and ensure timely final settlement of transactions.

Solana Status has issued an urgent notice on the X platform, recommending all mainnet beta validators to use version v3.0.14. This version includes a series of critical patches applicable to both staked and unstaked nodes.

According to market news, Jito Labs announced the launch of the IBRL Explorer tool, which transparently showcases the construction details within Solana blocks for the first time.The tool has discovered widespread behaviors such as "Late Packing" and "Slot Timing Games" in the Solana network, which affect state propagation efficiency, increase latency, and weaken network stability. The IBRL Explorer generates an IBRL score for each validator through three scoring mechanisms: Slot Time, Vote Packing, and Non-Vote Packing, aiming to enhance block construction quality and network performance.

The Ethereum treasury company Bitmine has once again deposited 82,560 ETH into the Ethereum staking system, bringing its total staked ETH amount to 544,064, valued at approximately $1.62 billion at current prices.Due to Bitmine's recent acceleration in staking, the current Ethereum validator queue has increased to about 977,000 ETH, with new validators expected to wait nearly 17 days. The amount of ETH waiting to be withdrawn in the exit queue exceeds 113,000.Ethereum network data shows that over 35.5 million ETH have been staked at this stage, accounting for about 29% of the total supply, with an annualized staking yield close to 2.54%.

According to Cointelegraph, the size of the Ethereum validator entry queue has surged to nearly twice that of the exit queue for the first time in six months. This growth indicates a rebound in staking demand, primarily driven by digital asset treasury companies like BitMine, and may be supported by the Pectra upgrade.

According to Cryptonomist, data from the Ethereum validator queue tracker shows that the entry queue for validators currently has about 745,619 ETH, with a waiting time of nearly 13 days; the exit queue has about 360,518 ETH, and validators exiting need to wait about 8 days to join.The report states that this is the first time in six months that the Ethereum staking queue has seen a reverse flow, with the amount of ETH waiting to be staked nearly double that of the amount of Ether waiting to leave the network. Abdul, the DeFi head of the blockchain platform Monad, pointed out that when the entry and exit queues reversed in June, the price of Ethereum subsequently doubled, and 2026 is expected to be an exciting year.

Flow has officially released an update on the attack incident, the validator consensus has been reached, and the proposed software upgrade plan has been accepted. The network is currently entering the repair and testing phase.The Flow network is online and has started generating blocks, but general transaction acceptance remains paused due to the need to verify and test the remediation protocol. At 6 AM Pacific Time, the network will open as part of Phase One of the Flow Network Recovery Plan, with the Cadence environment open for operations. Accounts affected by the attacker’s poisoning attack remain temporarily restricted, and the EVM environment is temporarily limited (read-only). Over 99.9% of Cadence accounts will regain full functionality during this transition period.

Flow blockchain encountered a security vulnerability attack, resulting in approximately $3.9 million in assets being transferred out of the network, prompting validators to execute a coordinated pause.The Flow Foundation is currently working closely with validators, core developers, and ecosystem partners to formulate a network recovery plan. The official confirmation states that user funds have not been affected, and technical repair steps are being validated.The ecosystem coordination phase is expected to be completed within 2-3 hours, with the next status update to be released at 6 PM Pacific Time on December 29. The foundation stated that the extension of the coordination time is to ensure the network can resume operation in a stable and orderly manner.