Voluntary Exits - Lighthouse Book (2024)

A validator may chose to voluntarily stop performing duties (proposing blocks and attesting to blocks) by submittinga voluntary exit message to the beacon chain.

A validator can initiate a voluntary exit provided that the validator is currently active, has not been slashed and has been active for at least 256 epochs (~27 hours) since it has been activated.

Note: After initiating a voluntary exit, the validator will have to keep performing duties until it has successfully exited to avoid penalties.

It takes at a minimum 5 epochs (32 minutes) for a validator to exit after initiating a voluntary exit.This number can be much higher depending on how many other validators are queued to exit.

Initiating a voluntary exit

In order to initiate an exit, users can use the lighthouse account validator exit command.

• The --keystore flag is used to specify the path to the EIP-2335 voting keystore for the validator. The path should point directly to the validator key .json file, not the folder containing the .json file.

• The --beacon-node flag is used to specify a beacon chain HTTP endpoint that conforms to the Beacon Node API specifications. That beacon node will be used to validate and propagate the voluntary exit. The default value for this flag is http://localhost:5052.

  See Also

  Voluntarily exit | Teku documentationThe Truth About Ethereum Withdrawals: How It Works, Key Metrics and MisconceptionsEthereum Withdrawals | Allnodes Help CenterVoluntary Exiting a Validator | CoinCashew

• The --network flag is used to specify the network (default is mainnet).

• The --password-file flag is used to specify the path to the file containing the password for the voting keystore. If this flag is not provided, the user will be prompted to enter the password.

After validating the password, the user will be prompted to enter a special exit phrase as a final confirmation after which the voluntary exit will be published to the beacon chain.

The exit phrase is the following:

Exit my validator

Below is an example for initiating a voluntary exit on the Holesky testnet.

$ lighthouse --network holesky account validator exit --keystore /path/to/keystore --beacon-node http://localhost:5052Running account manager for Holesky networkvalidator-dir path: ~/.lighthouse/holesky/validatorsEnter the keystore password for validator in 0xabcdPassword is correctPublishing a voluntary exit for validator 0xabcdWARNING: WARNING: THIS IS AN IRREVERSIBLE OPERATIONPLEASE VISIT https://lighthouse-book.sigmaprime.io/voluntary-exit.htmlTO MAKE SURE YOU UNDERSTAND THE IMPLICATIONS OF A VOLUNTARY EXIT.Enter the exit phrase from the above URL to confirm the voluntary exit:Exit my validatorSuccessfully published voluntary exit for validator 0xabcdVoluntary exit has been accepted into the beacon chain, but not yet finalized. Finalization may take several minutes or longer. Before finalization there is a low probability that the exit may be reverted.Current epoch: 29946, Exit epoch: 29951, Withdrawable epoch: 30207Please keep your validator running till exit epochExit epoch in approximately 1920 secs

Full withdrawal of staked fund

After the Capella upgrade on 12^th April 2023, if a user initiates a voluntary exit, they will receive the full staked funds to the withdrawal address, provided that the validator has withdrawal credentials of type 0x01. For more information on how fund withdrawal works, please visit Ethereum.org website.

FAQ

1. How to know if I have the withdrawal credentials type 0x01?

There are two types of withdrawal credentials, 0x00 and 0x01. To check which type your validator has, go to Staking launchpad, enter your validator index and click verify on mainnet:

• withdrawals enabled means your validator is of type 0x01, and you will automatically receive the full withdrawal to the withdrawal address that you set.
• withdrawals not enabled means your validator is of type 0x00, and will need to update your withdrawal credentials from 0x00 type to 0x01 type (also known as BLS-to-execution-change, or BTEC) to receive the staked funds. The common way to do this is using Staking deposit CLI or ethdo, with the instructions available here.

2. What if my validator is of type 0x00 and I do not update my withdrawal credentials after I initiated a voluntary exit?

Your staked fund will continue to be locked on the beacon chain. You can update your withdrawal credentials anytime, and there is no deadline for that. The catch is that as long as you do not update your withdrawal credentials, your staked funds in the beacon chain will continue to be locked in the beacon chain. Only after you update the withdrawal credentials, will the staked funds be withdrawn to the withdrawal address.

3. How many times can I update my withdrawal credentials?

If your withdrawal credentials is of type 0x00, you can only update it once to type 0x01. It is therefore very important to ensure that the withdrawal address you set is an address under your control, preferably an address controlled by a hardware wallet.

If your withdrawal credentials is of type 0x01, it means you have set your withdrawal address previously, and you will not be able to change the withdrawal address.

3. When will my BTEC request (update withdrawal credentials to type 0x01) be processed ?

Your BTEC request will be included very quickly as soon as a new block is proposed. This should be the case most (if not all) of the time, given that the peak BTEC request time has now past (right after the Capella upgrade on 12^th April 2023 and lasted for ~ 2 days) .

4. When will I get my staked fund after voluntary exit if my validator is of type 0x01?

There are 3 waiting periods until you get the staked funds in your withdrawal address:

• An exit queue: a varying time that takes at a minimum 5 epochs (32 minutes) if there is no queue; or if there are many validators exiting at the same time, it has to go through the exit queue. The exit queue can be from hours to weeks, depending on the number of validators in the exit queue. During this time your validator has to stay online to perform its duties to avoid penalties.

• A fixed waiting period of 256 epochs (27.3 hours) for the validator's status to become withdrawable.

• A varying time of "validator sweep" that can take up to n days with n listed in the table below. The "validator sweep" is the process of skimming through all eligible validators by index number for withdrawals (those with type 0x01 and balance above 32ETH). Once the "validator sweep" reaches your validator's index, your staked fund will be fully withdrawn to the withdrawal address set.

Note: Ideal scenario assumes no block proposals are missed. This means a total of withdrawals of 7200 blocks/day * 16 withdrawals/block = 115200 withdrawals/day. Practical scenario assumes 1% of blocks are missed per day. As an example, if there are 700000 eligible validators, one would expect a waiting time of slightly more than 6 days.

The total time taken is the summation of the above 3 waiting periods. After these waiting periods, you will receive the staked funds in your withdrawal address.

The voluntary exit and full withdrawal process is summarized in the Figure below.