diff --git a/chain/network/src/concurrency/demux.rs b/chain/network/src/concurrency/demux.rs
index 251fe5c3a1c..08b9ccee3d6 100644
--- a/chain/network/src/concurrency/demux.rs
+++ b/chain/network/src/concurrency/demux.rs
@@ -122,6 +122,7 @@ impl<Arg: 'static + Send, Res: 'static + Send> Demux<Arg, Res> {
                 if tokens < rl.burst && next_token.is_none() {
                     next_token = Some(tokio::time::Instant::now() + interval);
                 }
+
                 tokio::select! {
                     // TODO(gprusak): implement sleep future support for FakeClock,
                     // so that we don't use tokio directly here.
@@ -139,35 +140,50 @@ impl<Arg: 'static + Send, Res: 'static + Send> Demux<Arg, Res> {
                     },
                 }
                 if !calls.is_empty() && tokens > 0 {
+                    // First pop all the elements already accumulated on the queue.
+                    // TODO(gprusak): technically calling try_recv() in a loop may cause a starvation,
+                    // in case elements are added to the queue faster than we can take them out,
+                    // so ideally we should rather atomically dump the content of the queue:
+                    // we can achieve that by maintaining an atomic counter with number of elements in
+                    // the queue.
+                    while let Ok(call) = recv.try_recv() {
+                        calls.push(call);
+                    }
+
                     tokens -= 1;
                     // TODO(gprusak): as of now Demux (as a concurrency primitive) doesn't support
                     // cancellation. Once we add cancellation support, this task could accept a context sum:
                     // the sum is valid iff any context is valid.
                     let calls = std::mem::take(&mut calls);
-                    // TODO(gprusak): don't spawn on the "current" runtime. See one of the previous TODOs.
-                    tokio::spawn(async move {
-                        let mut args = vec![];
-                        let mut outs = vec![];
-                        let mut handlers = vec![];
-                        for call in calls {
-                            args.push(call.arg);
-                            outs.push(call.out);
-                            handlers.push(call.handler);
-                        }
-                        let res = handlers.swap_remove(0)(args).await;
-                        assert_eq!(
-                            res.len(),
-                            outs.len(),
-                            "demux handler returned {} results, expected {}",
-                            res.len(),
-                            outs.len(),
-                        );
-                        for (res, out) in std::iter::zip(res, outs) {
-                            // If the caller is no longer interested in the result,
-                            // the channel will be closed. Ignore that.
-                            let _ = out.send(res);
-                        }
-                    });
+                    let mut args = vec![];
+                    let mut outs = vec![];
+                    let mut handlers = vec![];
+                    // TODO(gprusak): due to inlining the call at most 1 call is executed at any
+                    // given time. Ideally we should have a separate limit for the number of
+                    // in-flight calls. It would be dangerous to have it unbounded, especially in a
+                    // case when the concurrent calls would cause a contention.
+                    // TODO(gprusak): add metrics for:
+                    // - demuxed call latency (the one inlined here)
+                    // - outer call latency (i.e. latency of the whole Demux.call, from the PoV of
+                    // the caller).
+                    for call in calls {
+                        args.push(call.arg);
+                        outs.push(call.out);
+                        handlers.push(call.handler);
+                    }
+                    let res = handlers.swap_remove(0)(args).await;
+                    assert_eq!(
+                        res.len(),
+                        outs.len(),
+                        "demux handler returned {} results, expected {}",
+                        res.len(),
+                        outs.len(),
+                    );
+                    for (res, out) in std::iter::zip(res, outs) {
+                        // If the caller is no longer interested in the result,
+                        // the channel will be closed. Ignore that.
+                        let _ = out.send(res);
+                    }
                 }
             }
         });