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Ethereum PoS has a concept of "voluntary validator exit", which will remove the validator from attesting duties. Staked ETH will be withdrawn automatically to the withdrawal address, as long as one has been set.

Do not set your withdrawal address to an exchange wallet. The funds will not be credited, and you will battle support for them.

Exiting a validator requires a fully synced consensus client. Checkpoint sync, configured with RAPID_SYNC_URL in .env, can sync one in minutes.

Exit using keymanager API

  • Get a list of your keys with ./ethd keys list
  • Sign an exit message with ./ethd keys sign-exit 0xpubkey

This signed message is valid for the life of your validator; you do not have to use it right away (you could, for example, keep it for your heirs).

As and when you want to submit a voluntary exit you can:

  • Submit the JSON file to beaconcha.in
    OR
  • Use ./ethd keys send-exit to send all created exits through your own consensus layer client

You can track the status of your voluntary exit request at https://beaconcha.in/validator/<validator-id>. There are three steps:

  • Your validator becomes 'Exited' (5-6 epochs (~35 minutes), assuming no exit queue)
  • Your validator exit becomes 'Withdrawable' (256 epochs (~27 hours))
  • Your 32 Eth is returned to your withdrawal address (currently a maximum of just under a week, see the 'Withdrawals' tab at https://beaconcha.in/validator/<validator-id> for the next scheduled withdraw for your validator)

Avoid penalties

Note you will need to continue running your validator until the exit has been processed by the chain, if you wish to avoid incurring offline penalties. You can check the status of your validator with tools such as beaconcha.in.

Exit using keystore-m and ethdo

  • Place all keys to be exited into .eth/validator-keys
  • Run ./ethd keys sign-exit from-keystore, optionally with --offline if you have an offline-preparation.json for ethdo

This will sign exit messages with ethdo, which you can then store for your heirs or submit.

This method has the advantage of not requiring the keys to be loaded into a validator client first, and is ideal when the validators are being run by a 3rd-party service.

This works when Eth Docker is not the primary way to run the node. For example, for a systemd setup, you could nano .env, set COMPOSE_FILE=ethdo.yml, and set CL_NODE=http://HOSTIP:5052, adjusting HOSTIP to the IP address of your node and 5052 to the port REST is available on. Note that for this to work, the REST port needs to be reachable by host IP, not just by localhost. When in doubt, the --offline method will always work.

Legacy exit using client-specific tools

Teku​

Teku will exit all validators that have been imported to it. Run ./ethd cmd run --rm validator-exit and follow the prompts.

Prysm​

To exit, run ./ethd cmd run --rm validator-exit and follow the prompts.

Lighthouse​

The exit procedure for Lighthouse requires a copy of the keystore JSON files.

  • Copy the keystore-m JSON files into .eth/validator_keys/ in this project directory.
  • Run ./ethd cmd run --rm validator-exit /keys/<name-of-keystore-file>, once for each keystore (validator) you wish to exit.
  • Follow prompts.

The directory .eth/validator_keys is passed through to docker as /keys. Lighthouse expects you to explicitly name the keystore-m file for which you wish to process an exit. Because this can be confusing, here's an example:

yorick@ethlinux:~/eth-pyrmont$ ls .eth/validator_keys/
deposit_data-1605672506.json  keystore-m_12381_3600_0_0_0-1605672506.json
yorick@ethlinux:~/eth-pyrmont$ ./ethd cmd run --rm validator-exit /keys/keystore-m_12381_3600_0_0_0-1605672506.json
Starting eth-pyrmont_consensus_1 ... done
Running account manager for pyrmont testnet
validator-dir path: "/keys" 
Enter the keystore password for validator in "/keys/keystore-m_12381_3600_0_0_0-1605672506.json"

Nimbus​

The exit procedure for Nimbus requires a copy of the keystore JSON files.

  • Copy the keystore-m JSON files into .eth/validator_keys/ in this project directory.
  • Run ./ethd cmd run --rm validator-exit /keys/<name-of-keystore-file>, once for each keystore (validator) you wish to exit.
  • Follow prompts.

The directory .eth/validator_keys is passed through to docker as /keys. Nimbus expects you to explicitly name the keystore-m file for which you wish to process an exit. Because this can be confusing, here's an example:

ubuntu@eth-testing:~/eth-docker-devel$ ./ethd cmd run --rm validator-exit /keys/keystore-m_12381_3600_0_0_0-1681561909.json
Please enter the password for decrypting '/keys/keystore-m_12381_3600_0_0_0-1681561909.json'
Password:

Lodestar​

To exit a specific validator, run ./ethd cmd run --rm validator-exit --pubkeys <0xPUBKEY>.
Multiple validators can be exited by providing a comma-separated list of public keys to pubkeys.
If no pubkeys are provided, it will exit all validators that have been imported.