On October 1, MetaMask suspended non-custodial staking operations in response to a security incident that affected part of its infrastructure. In a statement, the company noted that it had not identified any "immediate threat to MetaMask wallets." Lido, a MetaMask partner, confirmed the exit of validators and estimated that the procedure could be completed by October 7. The staking provider Lido assured that the incident does not affect users and their operations, as a diverse set of node operators and other security systems, including a reserve fund of over 6,750 stETH, are designed to manage and mitigate disruptions.
The resumption of normal MetaMask staking operations is expected within the next 45 days due to a long queue for validator entry. It should be noted that Lido controls 29% of the total ETH staking supply, but the amount staked by MetaMask has not been disclosed. Following the update, it was reported that Joseph Lubin, one of the founders of ConsenSys, the company behind MetaMask, moved 133K ETH. It is unclear if this is related to the incident. Stani Kulechov, CEO of Aave, confirmed that their lending protocol is not at risk of contamination. "There is no impact on Aave markets, and everything is operating normally,"– he noted. Guy Young, founder of Ethena, assured USDe investors that they are not at risk of exposure to Lido assets. "We are aware of the situation. The assets backing USDe currently do not include direct exposure to stETH or any other liquid staking tokens. Ethena is expected to remain unaffected,"– he stated.
Although the incident may not affect MetaMask wallets, its consequences could be far-reaching. Security analysts compared this incident to last year's Kiln incident, which affected the backend node infrastructure. Kiln was forced to shut down its validators to minimize risks but incurred losses of $41 million. Hacking attacks on crypto assets have significantly increased in 2026. Will MetaMask's caution in disabling its validators prove to be an effective solution to minimize potential spread? Nevertheless, MetaMask has evolved into an integrated wallet offering staking, perpetual contract trading, predictive markets, tokenized securities trading, and more. The trading volume of perpetual contracts doubled to $1.6 billion in the third quarter.
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