The Ethereum Merge is officially complete as of Thursday, Sept. 15. The markets saw an immediate impact on the market for the cryptocurrency, with its price making a major drop early in the morning, affecting those with a stake in ETH.
Some ETH holders chose to stake their Ethereum pre-merge, in hopes of being able to generate a solid passive income. Now that the merge is over, when can you un-Stake your Ethereum? Let’s look into it.
When Can You Un-Stake Your Ethereum?
Self-proclaimed DeFi educator and member of DeFi Omega Korpi has given his insight on the unlocking of the billions of dollars of Ethereum currently staked.
Korpi points out that “the Merge won’t enable withdrawals,” as that is “planned for another Ethereum upgrade.” This next Ethereum Upgrade isn’t expected to come for another 6-12 months. This means that those who staked their ETH before the merge will have to wait a while until they can withdraw their Ethereum.
The DeFi educator adds that once Ethereum developers enable withdrawals, there will still be a long queue of holders waiting. Hence, it will likely take even longer to withdraw your ETH. “There will be an exit queue which may take more than a year in the worst-case scenario or several months in a more realistic one. The release will be slow,” Korpu says.
On the other hand, there are ways for ETH stakers to access liquidity from their staked tokens. If you staked the coin with a validator, you may receive tokens such as bETH in return. These tokens are then tradeable on the open market. Therefore, those who staked ETH this way have a way to get liquidity before the developers enable withdrawals again.