The blockchain community is watching closely on Ethereum 2.0, the next big upgrade for the Ethereum network. Ethereum 2.0 is scheduled to launch on December 1st, 2020. It will bring Proof of Stake (POS), eWASM, and sharding. This will also bring more scalability to the Ethereum network. After several phases of the upgrade, the Eth1 and Eth2 chain will gradually merge with each other.
On Nov 5, the contract deposit was announced by Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, on Twitter.
The deposit contract is like a bridge between Ethereum’s current proof-of-work (PoW) blockchain, and its much-anticipated proof-of-stake (PoS) vision. Vitalik himself has already sent around 3,200 ETH, worth about $1.5M, to this new deposit contract in preparation for staking. By staking, you can become a validator to run a node on the Ethereum 2.0. A validator must be consistently connected to the Eth2 Beacon Chain & Eth1.
So here come the questions: To stake or not to stake? If the answer is yes, then how to stake?
Let’s solve the problem one by one.
The rewards of ETH2 staking is huge, including yields north of 20%. But you also need to balance the rewards with the cost and risk. First of all, a minimum deposit of 32 ETH (worth around $14,800 at the press time) is needed to stake on the new contract we mentioned above. These ETH you stake could be locked up for about 2 years. Another barrier is that, technically, you need high-quality equipment and a great amount of power to do your mining.
It’s definitely a rather high entry for normal users to DIY staking. So you can select from 3 different types of third-party staking services. They will help you run the node. But you still need to become a validator and have your own node.
(Source: Blox Staking Blog - All the Ways to Stake)
Complicated, isn’t it? Don’t worry, besides DIY staking and staking services, we are introducing an affordable option. If you want to share the promising rewards of ETH2 staking, the most user-friendly way is to stake your ETH into ETH2.0 staking pools on platforms.
Let’s meet 3 staking pools that make Ethereum 2.0 staking easy and accessible.
Stkr
Stkr is a decentralized platform with ETH2.0 staking pools, built by the Ankr team.
With Stkr, you can stake from as little as 0.5 ETH to as much as 1,000 ETH, and automatically join other stakers in Micropools. By staking ETH, you’ll receive aETH. With aETH, you can hold or trade your staked assets at any time, without having to wait until transactions are enabled on Ethereum 2.0. Your funds are kept under your own custody, so that you always remain in full control of your assets.
There are simply 3 steps to stake your ETH into the Micropools.
Step 1: Connect your wallet
Step 2: Click “Start staking”
Step 3: Drag the button on the bar to change the amount of ETH you’d like to stake, click the box at the bottom to confirm, then click “Stake”
Rocket Pool
Rocket Pool is a centralized staking pool that offers ETH2 staking for any user: normal users, Dapps, SaaS provider and more.
With Rocke Pool, there’s no need to run a node yourself, setup monitoring or anything else complicated. You can stake as little as 0.01 ETH and instantly receive rETH, a tokenised staking deposit. The rETH token does not need to be locked to gain rewards and it can be traded/sold/held as the user desires, all from the moment they deposit ETH. All rETH holders share the risk of nodes being slashed or penalised equally. If a node fails, all holders lose a tiny amount of value, rather than one unlucky person losing everything.
The project’s Medalla Beta is running right now with over 250,000 Goerli ETH staked so far. You are 3 steps away from completing your ETH2.0 staking.
Step 1: Go to the Rocket Pool Beta web, click “select wallet”
Step 2: Connect your METAMASK or LEDGER wallet.
(Ledger wallet has partnered with Compound to enable interest earning and borrowing directly in Ledger)
Step 3: Enter the staking amount of ETH to replace the “1.00”, then click “start”
Blox Staking
Blox is an open-source, fully non-custodial staking platform for Ethereum 2.0.
Staking with Blox requires no key sharing. In fact, you have a dedicated remote signer stored directly on your own cloud account. The remote signer, KeyVault holds your private validator keys and executes duties sent from the blockchain via Blox Infra nodes. You just manage your validator by using Blox's Desktop App, where you can check a performance monitoring dashboard.
Currently, the minimum staking deposit is 32 ETH. Soon when the staking pools are released, you’ll be able to do micro ETH staking.
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