Last month, after the Shapella upgrade of the Ethereum network went live and permitted redemptions for the first time, numerous Ethereum validators chose to remove their cryptocurrency from the staking mechanism of the blockchain.
Validators who withdrew funds to wallets hosted by the large American crypto exchange Coinbase were confronted with an unexpected issue – there was not enough technical support to accept these deposits, leaving the money stuck.
The customer support representative informed that deposits to Coinbase ETH addresses from external validators are not supported by their systems at the moment. Unfortunately, the funds may be stuck until they can support these transactions.
As of press time, 42 users have posted their concerns on Reddit regarding asset balances not reflecting their ether staking withdrawals on Coinbase wallets. Zelda, an Ethereum validator, is reportedly one of the victims of this issue, despite blockchain records indicating that the staked ether became withdrawable on April 25.
McKenna Otterstedt, a senior associate for product communications at Coinbase, has confirmed the presence of a “technical issue” and that the company’s personnel are actively working on a resolution.
She refused to disclose the number of users impacted or the amount of ETH that was trapped in a state of uncertainty.
According to blockchain-analysis firm Nansen, Coinbase holds the greatest amount of ETH in the withdrawal queue, accounting for 40% of the total. Coinbase also offers its own staking services, including through public validators owned and operated by Coinbase Cloud.
Coinbase’s customer support advised against configuring rewards and unstaking withdrawals from externally staked ETH to a Coinbase ETH wallet until the issue was resolved.
