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Exit your validator

Voluntarily exiting your validator from the Ethereum network is a one time command using the prysmctl tool. Note that this operation was previously facilitated by a command exposed by the Prysm validator client, and can still be accessed that way. At a high level, you'll follow these steps to exit your validator:

  1. Ensure that you have access to a fully synced beacon node.
  2. Issue the validator exit command to your validator and allow the beacon node to access to your validator keys through the --wallet-dir flag or web3signer and the --beacon-rpc-provider flag (examples provided below).
  3. Select the account(s) that should be exited. This step can be skipped by specifying the account(s) via the --public-keys flag when issuing the validator exit command.
  4. Confirm your understanding of the consequences of exiting your validator by typing Exit my validator when prompted.
tip

Looking for a particular phrase to perform a voluntary exit in Prysm? Read step 4 in the above steps!

After providing confirmation, voluntary exit request will be broadcasted through your beacon node. Visit our Command-line options documentation for more configuration options.

caution

Voluntarily exiting will not withdraw fund, validators must have their withdrawal_credentials updated in addition to exiting to withdraw the entire balance. Learn more on how to withdraw earnings or fully withdraw your validator in our guide

The validator-exit command only supports gRPC, which means that the specified beacon-rpc-provider needs to be a Prysm beacon node (because Prysm's beacon node client is the only client that supports gRPC)

Examples below use the local prysm wallet, if you are using web3signer, replace the wallet-dir flag with the flags used to run the validator with web3signer. 

prysmctl validator exit --wallet-dir=<path/to/wallet> --beacon-rpc-provider=<127.0.0.1:4000>

prysmctl is not accessible from prysm.sh and will need to be built from source or downloaded from our release page.

caution

The following command is a soon-to-be-deprecated alternative that you should avoid using:

./prysm.sh validator accounts voluntary-exit

Using Docker

docker run -it -v $HOME/Eth2Validators/prysm-wallet-v2:/wallet \
  gcr.io/prysmaticlabs/prysm/cmd/prysmctl:latest \
  validator exit --wallet-dir=/wallet --beacon-rpc-provider=<127.0.0.1:4000>
caution

The following command is a soon-to-be-deprecated alternative that you should avoid using:

docker run -it -v $HOME/Eth2Validators/prysm-wallet-v2:/wallet \
  gcr.io/prysmaticlabs/prysm/validator:latest \
  accounts voluntary-exit --wallet-dir=/wallet

Using Bazel

bazel run //cmd/prysmctl --config=release -- validator exit --wallet-dir=/wallet --beacon-rpc-provider=<127.0.0.1:4000>
caution

The following command is a soon-to-be-deprecated alternative that you should avoid using:

bazel run //cmd/validator --config=release -- accounts voluntary-exit

Note: The above-referenced commands that are being deprecated have not been removed yet, but mirror those found in prysmctl.