According to @cas_abbe, Aave and other lending protocols assume 1 stETH equals 1 ETH for collateral purposes because users can ultimately redeem stETH for ETH after a waiting period (source: @cas_abbe on X). According to @cas_abbe, stETH often trades at a slight discount to ETH in secondary markets, creating a stETH/ETH basis that diverges from the 1:1 collateral assumption (source: @cas_abbe on X). According to @cas_abbe, this market discount is the second key reason in his analysis and is relevant for traders evaluating borrowing power and potential liquidation dynamics when using stETH as collateral (source: @cas_abbe on X).

According to @cas_abbe, approximately 893,599 ETH (about $3.96B) is currently queued to be unstaked with an estimated wait near 16 days, the longest on record so far, signaling an unusual buildup in the exit queue (source: @cas_abbe). Ethereum’s exit queue duration is mechanically governed by validator churn limits, meaning concentrated exits extend wait times without implying protocol instability by themselves (source: ethereum.org staking withdrawals documentation). The author emphasizes that the long queue should not be read as broad loss of confidence in ETH and urges deeper evaluation of exit versus deposit flows to understand net staking pressure (source: @cas_abbe). For traders, extended exit times can slow redemption arbitrage and temporarily widen peg deviations and slippage in LST pairs such as stETH/ETH, cbETH/ETH, and rETH/ETH, affecting execution quality and liquidity management (sources: Lido documentation; Coinbase cbETH documentation; Rocket Pool documentation; Curve pool analytics). Key monitoring tools during this period include the Beacon Chain exit queue, net validator entries/exits, and LST pool depth to time rotations between spot ETH, LSTs, and staking-yield strategies (sources: beaconcha.in; rated.network; Curve pools).

According to @Excellion, Ethereum validator exits can clear in a few hours to a day when the queue is light, but during high-demand waves they can extend to days or weeks with first-come processing, creating a big door in, small door out dynamic, source: @Excellion on X, Aug 14, 2025. Ethereum’s protocol applies an activation and exit churn limit that caps how many validators can leave per epoch, mechanically pacing withdrawals and lengthening wait times as exit requests rise, source: Ethereum.org Staking documentation. During prior market stress, liquid staking tokens such as stETH traded below par versus ETH when redemptions were constrained, highlighting liquidity and basis risk tied to exit bottlenecks, source: Kaiko Research June 2022. Historically, these constraints have paced ETH sell flow over multiple days and coincided with wider LST discounts and weaker futures basis, reflecting the throttle imposed by the exit queue, source: Ethereum.org Staking documentation and Kaiko Research.