The recent rally was no exception for Ethereum [ETH]. The largest altcoin, which was trading near the $1900 price level, has now climbed close to $2500. At press time, ETH was trading at $2,459.03 after a hike of over 30% in the past 30 days.
However, this price hike is not solid proof that ETH will continue going up. This is because the staking side of Ethereums supply is behaving differently from expected performance during a major price rally.
Rather than seeing a rush to unlock ETH, the network is seeing continued commitment to staking.
Is this a good sign？
According to Ethereum‘s Validator Queue, ETH ’exit queue has hit 0. In this, around 902,506 are active validators, and about 42.4 million ETH are staked, accounting for 34.8% of the total supply.
Source: Validator Queue
This happens even after Ethereum witnessed a 70% pump. Looking at the current scenario, one can tell that the current ETH rally has more room to run.
Hence, if these validators are expecting ETH to appreciate further, exiting staking simply to sell after a 70% rally may not make sense to them.
Needless to say, another factor might be staking yield, where stakers are earning rewards for participating in Ethereums network. If they remain bullish on ETH, they can continue earning yield while maintaining exposure to the asset.
Ethereum validators performance in August
This comes as in August 2026, the entry wait time fell from around 43–44 days to roughly 36 days, showing that the large staking backlog is gradually clearing.
Source: Validator Queue
At the same time, after falling to around 880,000–881,000 in mid-July, the number of active validators began recovering. In August, the count rose sharply from roughly 887,000 at the start of the month to over 900,000 by late August, reaching around 902,000–903,000.
Source: Validator Queue
This shows that Ethereums validator base is expanding again, signaling strong staking participation and limited exit pressure.
Whats more？
This comes as Ethereums largest DAT, Bitmine Immersion Technologies, has staked 5,067,309 ETH so far, valued at approximately $12.4 billion. Whereas, Shaprlink has staked over 26,193 ETH total.
All this happens while Fidelity has announced plans for Ethereum staking and quarterly cash distributions, adding a new source of potential income to the spot ETF.