Ethereum Developers Propose Raising Validator Limit to 2,048 Ether From 32 Ether

A bump in waiting times and the sheer amount of interest in spinning up Ethereum validator nodes is making developers consider increasing the current limits drastically.

Developers have proposed raising the validator limit from 32 ether (ETH) to 2,048 ether – a 6,300% rise. This has forced large entities, such as Lido or staking services offered by crypto exchanges, to spin up multiple validator nodes to offer staking yield services to users.

Developers said on an Ethereum core developer call on Thursday that the current limit led to a brisk expansion of the network’s validator set, albeit with a large increase in the number of validators running the network.

The proposal was first floated in early June by Ethereum developers Mike Neuder, Francesco D’Amato, Aditya Asgaonkar and Justin Drake. The proposal is still under debate and isn’t actively being worked on as of Monday.

Validators are entities in a proof-of-stake blockchain, such as Ethereum, that process transactions and help maintain the overall security of such networks.

Data shows the current waiting time for a user to run a validator node on Ethereum is 44 days, up from nearly a month in May. Exiting the network is possible within a few minutes, and no entity is in the “exit queue” as of Monday, the data shows.

The data indicates the demand for validators to enter the network and earn a nearly 5% annual yield. Such strong demand is likely stemming from large ether holders, who do not want to cash out and instead just want to earn some passive income on their holdings.