How to Stake Ethereum? A Complete Ethereum Staking Guide 

Now that you’re familiar with what Ethereum is, it’s important to understand the consensus mechanism called Proof of Stake. Staking incentivizes users to help secure the network and process transactions be rearding them with ETH, thus allow you to earn a portion of all new Ethereum being created. Since Ethereum has no maximum supply, there’s no end in sight for stakers to participate for years and years to come. Plus, stakers get transactions fees paid to them in addition to inflationary coins. For obvious reasons the first thing you’ll need to participate in Ethereum staking, is ETH tokens. There are several different ways to stake your ETH tokens, so let’s answer the question of: How to stake Ethereum?

Centralized Exchanges

Many centralized exchanges provide staking services if you are not yet comfortable holding ETH in your own wallet. This allows you to earn some yield on your ETH holdings with minimal oversight or effort. The trade-off here is that centralized providers consolidate large pools of ETH to run large numbers of validators. This can be dangerous for the network and its users as it creates a large centralized target and point of failure, making the network more vulnerable to attack or bugs. For non-US citizens, you the best option is Binance. For US citizens you have the option of staking on Kraken and Coinbase. While all these exchanges offer the same staking services for ETH Tokens. Each one has its own APR% and staking timeframes attached to them. Be sure to read each exchange staking documentation carefully before locking up your ETH Tokens.

Solo Staking

Solo staking on Ethereum is the gold standard for staking. It provides full participation rewards, improves the decentralization of the network, and never requires trusting anyone else with your funds. Those considering solo staking should have at least 32 ETH tokens and a dedicated computer connected to the internet with no downtime. Some technical know-how is helpful, but easy-to-use tools now exist to help simplify this process. Solo stakers are responsible for operating the hardware needed to run these clients. Choose the combination of clients and hardware that allows you to minimize your risk and best contribute to the health and security of the network.

Solo Staking Steps

1. To get started you’ll need the required hardware and 32 ETH tokens to “run a node” and solo stake on the Ethereum Network without trusting any third parties.
2. Once you have these requirements you’ll head over to the Staking Launchpad. You’ll need to check each of the ten boxes with the final box confirming your participation as a validator on the Ethereum network.
3. This will prompt you to choose your execution client and secure your stake.

Keep in mind staking in this manner will lock your ETH up until a future unknown date after the Ethereum 2.0 merge has been completed. Likely to happen in 2023 sometime.

Staking as a Service

If you don’t want, or don’t feel comfortable dealing with hardware but still want to stake your 32 ETH, staking-as-a-service options allow you to delegate the hard part while you earn native block rewards. Staking as a service (“SaaS”) represents a category of staking services, where similar to solo staking, you deposit your own 32 ETH tokens for a validator, but delegate node operations to a third-party operator. This process usually involves being guided through the initial setup, including key generation and deposit, then uploading your signing keys to the operator. This allows the service to operate your validator on your behalf, usually for a monthly fee. The Ethereum protocol does not natively support delegation of stake, so these services have been built out to fill this demand. If you have 32 ETH to stake, but don’t feel comfortable dealing with hardware, SaaS services allow you to delegate the hard part while you earn native block rewards. It’s as simple as choosing your desired “SaaS Client” from the available clients. 

Arrangements will differ from provider to provider, but commonly you will be guided through setting up any signing keys (you need one per 32 ETH), then upload these to your provider to allow them to validate on your behalf. The signing keys alone do not give any ability to withdraw, transfer or spend your funds. However, they do provide the ability to cast votes towards consensus, which if not done properly can result in offline penalties or slashing of rewards for the SaaS provider you’ve chosen.

Pooled Staking Built for everyone, Staking Pools are a collaborative approach to allow many with smaller amounts of ETH to obtain the 32 ETH required to activate a set of validator keys. Pooling functionality is not natively supported within the protocol, so solutions were built by the community to address this need. Some pools operate using smart contracts, where your stake can be deposited into a contract and users receive a token representing this value. Other pools may not involve smart contracts and are instead mediated off-chain. The benefits of participating in a staking pool include being able to stake any amount of ETH Tokens and removing the 32 Ethereum requirements. There’s also no knowledge barrier to entry as participating in a pool is just as easy as your standard token swap. Currently, the easiest place to stake your Ethereum in a Staking Pool is on Rocket Pool. Lido Finance is also a good option. Alternatively, you can use Uniswap or another exchange to buy stETH (Lido Staked Ethereum) or rETH (Rocket Pool Staked Ethereum). However in this case you may not get 1 to 1 conversion for your coins like you would staking directly.