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ETH The number of Ethereum verifiers will drop sharply in 2026, but the total amount of pledged ETH reaches a record high.
In 2026, the number of active verifiers in Ethereum will drop significantly, but the total amount of pledged ETH on the network has never been so high. This divergence is not accidental, but stems from an upgrade of the agreement aimed at reshaping the mechanism for large operators to participate in consensus.
Decreased verifiers, increased locked ETH
At the beginning of 2026, Ethereum had nearly 975,000 active verifiers. This number then dropped to approximately 863,000, a decrease of approximately 112,000 nodes. At the same time, the total amount of pledged ETH increased in the opposite trend, from approximately 36.3 million to 43.7 million. During 2026 alone, more than 7 million ETH pieces have been pledged, and the current total pledged accounts for approximately 35.8% of Ethereum's circulation supply.
Data from the admission queue also reflects the continued enthusiasm of new participants. As of early October, there are still about 1.5 million ETH in line waiting for pledge, and the waiting time is expected to be about 25 days.
How the Pectra upgrade changed computing logic
The main driving force behind the reduction in the number of validators is the Pectra upgrade, which will be launched on May 7, 2025. Among them, the most far-reaching impact on pledgers is proposal EIP-7251, which increases the maximum effective balance of a single verifier from 32 ETH to 2,048 ETH.
Prior to this change, if operators wanted to pledge 320 ETH, they had no choice but to run ten independent verifier nodes, each node having to manage its own key and assume attestations responsibilities. After the Pectra upgrade, these scattered positions can be consolidated into one integrated node without withdrawing any pledged funds from the agreement.
The actual effect is very intuitive: since each integrated verifier can replace up to 64 independent 32ETH verifiers, while the funds invested in pledge at the bottom level continue to grow, the overall number of verifiers will naturally decline. In addition, Pectra adjusted its penalty formula for high-balance verifiers, reducing the initial penalty factor by 128 times, making large-scale integration economically feasible.
As a result, the decline in the number of verifiers can no longer be used as a valid indicator of pledge demand. Although the number of independent nodes managing these pledged funds continues to decrease, the total amount of ETH held by the network at the consensus level has reached an all-time high. For observers who only focus on headline verifier data, the Pectra-driven integration effect makes the raw count data increasingly difficult to interpret without taking into account the total pledge supply.
