Pooled staking

What are staking pools?

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 out separately to address this need.

Some pools operate using smart contracts, where funds can be deposited to a contract, which trustlessly manages and tracks your stake, and issues you a token that represents this value. Other pools may not involve smart contracts and are instead mediated off-chain.

Why stake with a pool?

In addition to the benefits we outlined in our intro to staking, staking with a pool comes with a number of distinct benefits.

Low barrier to entry

Not a whale? No problem. Most staking pools let you stake virtually any amount of ETH by joining forces with other stakers, unlike staking solo which requires 32 ETH.

Stake today

Staking with a pool is as easy as a token swap. No need to worry about hardware setup and node maintenance. Pools allow you to deposit your ETH which enables node operators to run validators. Rewards are then distributed to contributors minus a fee for node operations.

Liquidity tokens

Many staking pools provide a token that represents a claim on your staked ETH and the rewards it generates. This allows you to make use of your staked ETH, e.g. as collateral in DeFi applications.

What to consider

Pooled or delegated staking is not natively supported by the Ethereum protocol, but given the demand for users to stake less than 32 ETH a growing number of solutions have been built out to serve this demand.

Each pool and the tools or smart contracts they use have been built out by different teams, and each comes with benefits and risks. Pools enable users to swap their ETH for a token representing staked ETH. The token is known as a "liquid staking derivative"; this is useful because it allows users to swap any amount of ETH to an equivalent amount of a yield-bearing token that generates a return from the staking rewards applied to the underlying staked ETH (and vice versa) on decentralized exchanges even though the actual ETH stays staked on the Beacon Chain. This means swaps back and forth from a yield-bearing staked-ETH product and "raw ETH" is quick, easy and not only available in multiples of 32 ETH.

However, these liquid staking derivatives tend to create cartel-like behaviours where a large amount of staked ETH ends up under the control of a few centralized organizations rather than spread across many independent individuals. This creates conditions for censorship or value extraction. The gold standard for staking should always be individuals running validators on their own hardware whenever possible.

More on risks of staking tokens.

Attribute indicators are used below to signal notable strengths or weaknesses a listed staking pool may have. Use this section as a reference for how we define these attributes while you're choosing a pool to join.

Explore staking pools

There are a variety of options available to help you with your setup. Use the above indicators to help guide you through the tools below.

Please note the importance of choosing a service that takes client diversity seriously, as it improves the security of the network, and limits your risk. Services that have evidence of limiting majority client use are marked as "diverse clients."

Have a suggestion for a staking tool we missed? Check out our product listing policy to see if it would be a good fit, and to submit it for review.

Frequently asked questions

Further reading

• Staking with Rocket Pool - Staking Overview - RocketPool docs
• Staking Ethereum With Lido - Lido help docs

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