What's happening in the ETH staking market recently? Summarized in one sentence: two extremes are playing out simultaneously.

On the withdrawal side, the story goes like this: waiting times have dropped to nearly zero. Compared to the major congestion in September 2024 (27-day withdrawal cycle with 2.67 million ETH queued), current liquidity is a world apart. But ironically, the deposit side has completely reversed into collapse. Currently, 1.3 million ETH are queued waiting to enter, with wait times exceeding two weeks, hitting an all-time high.

Behind this bizarre contrast is actually a key driver: institutional player Bitmine's massive operations. Starting from December 26, 2025, within just over a week and a half, they continuously staked nearly 660,000 ETH, valued at approximately $2.1 billion at the time. What's more noteworthy is that Bitmine's total ETH holdings have now exceeded 4.1 million, representing 3.4% of total ETH circulation. In other words, this institution holds roughly one-thirtieth of global ETH holdings. An institutional operation at this scale directly reshapes the entire staking market's supply-demand structure—this isn't exaggeration, but hard data right before us.

Why does Bitmine dare to aggressively increase staking positions at this timing? The core logic is actually straightforward. On one hand, current ETH staking yields still offer attractive returns...