Staking ETH: Is it worth it?

[Abiky]

Getting 32 ETH to participate in staking isn't easy. At current market prices, not everyone will be able to become a validator to help secure the ETH blockchain. Of course, you can participate in staking with less than 32 ETH by making a deposit on a staking pool. But this involves trusting a third party, which is something crypto/Blockchain tech was meant to avoid in the first place.

As far as rewards are concerned, it's yet to be determined the annual returns you'll get when staking 32 ETH. There are other coins on the market with high stake rates of 20% APR and above. Taking this into account, I'm starting to wonder: Is it worth staking ETH? Your input will be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

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[miner29]

You can join a staking pool and wont have to stake all 32 yourself.

[xxcsu]

Time will tell , just like time will tell everything in crypto word.

Very hard to predict what would be a future of crypto .

Staking ETH , what is worth over 50k dollar as of now, its not a easy task for everyone.
Staking pools are a swamp of risk.
 
Some ppl says you may earn between 3-8% reward on your investment to help secure the network.
ETH2 staking rewards its really depend how much ETH is currently validating.
Just like mining.. if the network "busy" there is a lot of transaction going on, miner rewards going up . Less transaction, less rewards.

Lets do a little math :
Best case scenario, lets say 32ETH=50K$ , 8% profit a year = 4000$ , if ETH price stays the same in that year.
Worst case scenario , 32ETH=50K , 3% profit a year 1500$ if ETH price stays the same for that year.

This numbers can be 10x, 100x more in the future, no one knows for sure
This numbers can be 10X, 100x less in the future, no one knows for sure

[Coin_trader]

You can join a staking pool and wont have to stake all 32 yourself.

He already noted this suggestion of yours in his post. His concern is mainly on the profitability of Staking ETH(Any particular amount) compared to other Altcoin with high APY.

@OP, Take in consideration the fundamentals of Ethereum. The coin value itself has a lot of potential and less volatile compared to other DeFi coins that offer crazy APY rate. Many of those DeFi coin such as Sushi and so on are too volatile, Surely you can have a good profit on staking but you might loss big time when the value of the coin drop tremendously.

Maybe you should take in consideration that part. Goodluck

[batsonxl]

I think as soon as eth mining over many people will forget about eth. This staking stuff isnt attractive like mining, it is simple like bank account you live your money for %. Well if i have 50k money i will not keep it for % i will buy coins and other things which will give you more than 3-6% profit.

[Metroid]

It's only worth on the bear market, on the bull market no.

[adaseb]

It's only worth on the bear market, on the bull market no.

Yes this is pretty much correct. In a strong bull market like we have right now, you could pretty much lend your USD and get 20% APY. This isn't possible in a bear market. Even in a small bull market you would get close to 10% APY. Issue with bear markets is that you will get paid in ETH and the value of ETH will be lower than it is right now.

Remember what happened last time with ETH, it dropped like 95%. So even if you get 10% APY worth of ETH, the value of those ETH will be very low during a bear market. I also don't know why they chose 32 ETH to stake. Should of made it fair and kept it more at like 1 ETH. However I think when they were designing the POS staking the price of ETH was in the $300 range, so 32 ETH back then was like $10000 instead of $50K like it is today.

It would of been better if people didn't have to use staking pools because that only adds more degrees of error and fraud. So most likely most people won't stake their ETH at all due to all these issues which is too bad for decentralization.

[ryzaadit]

-snip-

Comparing, the % you got from staking and the volatility cryptocurrency not really worth it.

The reason was simple, the cryptocurrency market down more than a stake reward you got + we the bearish still not coming yet and could be soon since we already on the FOMO market. If I is the person who stakes 32 ETH, If I risky my eth with a price around 1500-2000$ for only 4000$ when the market right now is clearly on FOMO + Bubble can coming at any time.

Nah for me, it better to trade not gonna worth it staking on an all-time high price is a bad decision.

[batsonxl]

It's only worth on the bear market, on the bull market no.

yes i mean buy coins in bear market then sell on bull market after 2-3 years. im sure it will be more than 3-6%. this staking stuff may be only profitable to rich people.

[ethereumhunter]

32 ethereum now is too big money to be used for staking, and I will think twice to use that feature or just skip that. But I think it is better I use it for trading and make a profit because I see that pair ethereum and altcoins are in good progress, so I can expect to make a profit from that way. Besides that, staking ethereum will lock the funds without we can do anything we want, which is too risky for me. Some people are trying to staking their ethereum, especially if people have many ethereum that they do not use for anything except waiting for the next high price.

[Rainbow Bear]

Staking eth is great if you want to support the ecosystem but if your only seeking profit there are a lot of defi platforms where you can make over 10%.

[bittraffic]

Time will tell , just like time will tell everything in crypto word.

Very hard to predict what would be a future of crypto .

Staking ETH , what is worth over 50k dollar as of now, its not a easy task for everyone.
Staking pools are a swamp of risk.
 
Some ppl says you may earn between 3-8% reward on your investment to help secure the network.
ETH2 staking rewards its really depend how much ETH is currently validating.
Just like mining.. if the network "busy" there is a lot of transaction going on, miner rewards going up . Less transaction, less rewards.

Lets do a little math :
Best case scenario, lets say 32ETH=50K$ , 8% profit a year = 4000$ , if ETH price stays the same in that year.
Worst case scenario , 32ETH=50K , 3% profit a year 1500$ if ETH price stays the same for that year.

This numbers can be 10x, 100x more in the future, no one knows for sure
This numbers can be 10X, 100x less in the future, no one knows for sure

$4000 for a year's worth of staking seem good compare to nothing but what about ETH price?
I have a few ETH I have been holding for quite a while though not 32ETH I would expect a higher profit when it comes to just holding it. If the price for example will reach up to $5000 because everyone wants to be a validator by that time and at the same time keep them from selling on the market. This will lead to a price surge and people who had not been staking will be able to sell for a higher price.

[Abiky]

@OP, Take in consideration the fundamentals of Ethereum. The coin value itself has a lot of potential and less volatile compared to other DeFi coins that offer crazy APY rate. Many of those DeFi coin such as Sushi and so on are too volatile, Surely you can have a good profit on staking but you might loss big time when the value of the coin drop tremendously.

Maybe you should take in consideration that part. Goodluck

As they always say, "high risk, high reward". There are many "De-Fi" tokens and PoS coins which offer high rates, but they're subject to the negative effects of inflation. It's why I believe that coins with low stake rates will be able to last for long. ETH could be worth staking if rewards remain relatively stable. My concern is that ETH will experience a greater level of centralization once it becomes a full-fledged PoS cryptocurrency. Imagine a huge exchange like Binance or Huobi staking most of ETH's supply. It'll bring centralization to the Blockchain as we speak. Consider what happened with the Steem/HIVE fiasco where Binance controlled a large supply of tokens on the Blockchain. They've decided to support the STEEM blockchain's new hard fork, effectively putting user's funds at risk (the controversial fork revoked access to some users' funds on the Blockchain). It could be disastrous for ETH if a huge player like Binance controls most of the coin's supply.

All in all, it seems to me that there's no other solution for scalability other than making ETH a full-fledged PoS cryptocurrency. For those who still love a mineable smart contract platform, Ethereum Classic is an option to consider. I'm guessing that most (if not all) ETH's current miners will switch to the ETC chain once it becomes a PoS coin. ETC will become much stronger, and decentralized as a result. ETH will become less decentralized, but its performance will increase towards new heights. Staking ETH now might be wise, as it could reach new ATHs in price due to the "De-Fi" hype. Who knows if ETH hits $5k after the upgrade? Just my thoughts

[examplens]

There are other coins on the market with high stake rates of 20% APR and above.

There is no trustable and stable altcoin that had a high APR of 20%. Everything close to 10% annually is more than great, don't believe in fake statistics. Maybe you can get 20% of some coins, but without calculating inflation.
When you convert profit to fiat or Bitcoin, it is always much less than 20% and often be a negative amount.

[adaseb]

There are other coins on the market with high stake rates of 20% APR and above.

There is no trustable and stable altcoin that had a high APR of 20%. Everything close to 10% annually is more than great, don't believe in fake statistics. Maybe you can get 20% of some coins, but without calculating inflation.
When you convert profit to fiat or Bitcoin, it is always much less than 20% and often be a negative amount.

I agree. The DeFI APR stuff is just way too risky due to all the bugs that get discovered and usually lead to loss of funds. I wouldn't do any staking that way.

There was a way 2 weeks ago to get 20% APR and that was to short the Dec 2021 futures for BTC.  I think on FTX it had a 20% premium compared to spot. So if you got USD you could long spot BTC and short the futures and wait until Dec and close your hedge. 20% is pretty high, basically even higher than most credit card companies charge.

[Abiky]

There is no trustable and stable altcoin that had a high APR of 20%. Everything close to 10% annually is more than great, don't believe in fake statistics. Maybe you can get 20% of some coins, but without calculating inflation.
When you convert profit to fiat or Bitcoin, it is always much less than 20% and often be a negative amount.

That's certainly true, mate. For what I know, current stake rates are just an estimate. You'll earn a lot less with exchange fees and built-in network fees. I'd prefer to stake coins with a low APR, as the risks are lower. ETH's rates seem steady enough for the coin to maintain its price in the long term. The higher the stake rates, the greater the inflation for the underlying cryptocurrency will be in the long term. This translates into less market valuation the more coins are minted on the Blockchain. As long as ETH keeps rates considerably low, there should be nothing to worry about.

Nonetheless, I'm convinced enough to go all in ETH staking for the long term. Thanks to Dogecoin's astronomical rise, I have obtained the required ETH amount to become a validator. It's much better to stake on your own than leaving your coins to a staking pool. Not only the risks of loss are reduced, but you also contribute towards the decentralization of the Blockchain network. If ETH continues to go up in price, your staking returns in terms of Fiat will increase by a large margin. It's a win-win situation for both the Blockchain and the validator itself. Just my thoughts

[Heisenberg_Hunter]

All in all, it seems to me that there's no other solution for scalability other than making ETH a full-fledged PoS cryptocurrency. For those who still love a mineable smart contract platform, Ethereum Classic is an option to consider. I'm guessing that most (if not all) ETH's current miners will switch to the ETC chain once it becomes a PoS coin. ETC will become much stronger, and decentralized as a result. ETH will become less decentralized, but its performance will increase towards new heights. Staking ETH now might be wise, as it could reach new ATHs in price due to the "De-Fi" hype. Who knows if ETH hits $5k after the upgrade? Just my thoughts

With the introduction of PoS, ETH is becoming more and more centralized rather than becoming decentralized. Exchanges like Binance and people like CZ are always willing to control the market and exert huge centralization over the crypto community and this was possibly true when he was willing to do a 51% attack by bribing miners and reversing the bitcoin chain. Nowadays the primary purpose of any cryptocurrency has become a mere speculation, so obviously ETH would shoot up in price if there are more proper developments taking over but on the other hand if there are worse speculations going over and in the process we would be suffering from a bear market. This is why a mineable PoW and ASIC resistant currency like Monero would offer an excellent decentralization while comparing to Bitcoin or a PoS coin like Ethereum.

Ethereum Classic is more or less an useless mineable currency, i.e they are only used for mining and are suffering severe 51% attacks now and then. So probably ETC is geared more towards making money by offering a better mining solution rather than any use cases. ETC becoming decentralized would never make the coin superior to ETH atleast in terms of making profits as ETH provides one among the best platforms on the decentralized web to deploy contracts. This could never be achieved by a centralized chain like BSC but there are still quite a few possibilities DOT might be looking as the future ETH with more scalability and thereby providing similar use cases of ETH.

A mere $5k per coin would place the total valuation of Ethereum at $500 billion, but there are centralized chains like BSC which offers better scalability in deploying contracts so possibly there could be stiff competition for ETH in terms of hitting $5k price.

[Abiky]

With the introduction of PoS, ETH is becoming more and more centralized rather than becoming decentralized. Exchanges like Binance and people like CZ are always willing to control the market and exert huge centralization over the crypto community and this was possibly true when he was willing to do a 51% attack by bribing miners and reversing the bitcoin chain. Nowadays the primary purpose of any cryptocurrency has become a mere speculation, so obviously ETH would shoot up in price if there are more proper developments taking over but on the other hand if there are worse speculations going over and in the process we would be suffering from a bear market. This is why a mineable PoW and ASIC resistant currency like Monero would offer an excellent decentralization while comparing to Bitcoin or a PoS coin like Ethereum.

Ethereum Classic is more or less an useless mineable currency, i.e they are only used for mining and are suffering severe 51% attacks now and then. So probably ETC is geared more towards making money by offering a better mining solution rather than any use cases. ETC becoming decentralized would never make the coin superior to ETH atleast in terms of making profits as ETH provides one among the best platforms on the decentralized web to deploy contracts. This could never be achieved by a centralized chain like BSC but there are still quite a few possibilities DOT might be looking as the future ETH with more scalability and thereby providing similar use cases of ETH.

A mere $5k per coin would place the total valuation of Ethereum at $500 billion, but there are centralized chains like BSC which offers better scalability in deploying contracts so possibly there could be stiff competition for ETH in terms of hitting $5k price.

Exactly. The concentration of ETH's supply among a few stakers (validators) should be a real concern for those supporting the decentralization of Blockchain technology. It seems to me that ETH devs only care about convenience than true decentralization. It's always been about the money, instead of making crypto/Blockchain land a better place. Once ETH becomes a full-fledged PoS cryptocurrency, big exchanges will dominate the Blockchain. I believe that ETH miners will migrate into ETC, making the latter blockchain network bigger and stronger than ever. One thing for sure, is that ETC has been a victim of constant 51% attacks over time. It's hoped that with the ETH 2.0 upgrade, this will no longer become an issue.

Nonetheless, I believe that staking ETH yourself will only be good for making short term profits than anything else. Don't expect to take ETH seriously as the network will become less decentralized over time. ETH will remain actively traded on the market as long as people keep pouring money into it. If you care about decentralization, then I'd suggest you look elsewhere. Mining ETC or even Bitcoin itself might be a better option than staking centralized coins. Just my opinion

[jims2321]

With the introduction of PoS, ETH is becoming more and more centralized rather than becoming decentralized. Exchanges like Binance and people like CZ are always willing to control the market and exert huge centralization over the crypto community and this was possibly true when he was willing to do a 51% attack by bribing miners and reversing the bitcoin chain. Nowadays the primary purpose of any cryptocurrency has become a mere speculation, so obviously ETH would shoot up in price if there are more proper developments taking over but on the other hand if there are worse speculations going over and in the process we would be suffering from a bear market. This is why a mineable PoW and ASIC resistant currency like Monero would offer an excellent decentralization while comparing to Bitcoin or a PoS coin like Ethereum.

Ethereum Classic is more or less an useless mineable currency, i.e they are only used for mining and are suffering severe 51% attacks now and then. So probably ETC is geared more towards making money by offering a better mining solution rather than any use cases. ETC becoming decentralized would never make the coin superior to ETH atleast in terms of making profits as ETH provides one among the best platforms on the decentralized web to deploy contracts. This could never be achieved by a centralized chain like BSC but there are still quite a few possibilities DOT might be looking as the future ETH with more scalability and thereby providing similar use cases of ETH.

A mere $5k per coin would place the total valuation of Ethereum at $500 billion, but there are centralized chains like BSC which offers better scalability in deploying contracts so possibly there could be stiff competition for ETH in terms of hitting $5k price.

Exactly. The concentration of ETH's supply among a few stakers (validators) should be a real concern for those supporting the decentralization of Blockchain technology. It seems to me that ETH devs only care about convenience than true decentralization. It's always been about the money, instead of making crypto/Blockchain land a better place. Once ETH becomes a full-fledged PoS cryptocurrency, big exchanges will dominate the Blockchain. I believe that ETH miners will migrate into ETC, making the latter blockchain network bigger and stronger than ever. One thing for sure, is that ETC has been a victim of constant 51% attacks over time. It's hoped that with the ETH 2.0 upgrade, this will no longer become an issue.

Nonetheless, I believe that staking ETH yourself will only be good for making short term profits than anything else. Don't expect to take ETH seriously as the network will become less decentralized over time. ETH will remain actively traded on the market as long as people keep pouring money into it. If you care about decentralization, then I'd suggest you look elsewhere. Mining ETC or even Bitcoin itself might be a better option than staking centralized coins. Just my opinion

As I understand it, and correct me if I am wrong a these points.

1. Right now the only smart move if you looking to be a ETH 2. staker (validator) is spinning up a VPS with companies like Amazon/Google/Azure.  You are going to want at least 4 9's possibly 5 of reliability and uptime.  Because if your down, your penalized. 

2. You can't get out right now if want to (phase 0) until phase (1.5) sometime between now and 2022/23?  Which means if ethereum is tanking between now and then you lose,  on the flip side if ethereum jumps to 4K you can't liquidate either.  And you have ask to withdraw (stop validating) so if a number of validators want out, they could be blocked for a period of time.

3. Penalties are severe for inability to participate as a validator in the network.  No exceptions give in their documentation for natural disasters (hurricane or earthquake for example) or man made (damage infrastructure due to human involvement).  In theory (honestly that is all we have now is theory) a validator could lose their entire stake if a majority of the network decides to take it.  It doesn't matter the reason.  If a majority agrees your out, your out.

Finally it looks like Ethereum 2.0 will devolve to a few validators (couple of hundred or less) as they purge their numbers over time and via the normal acts of transactions accumulate enough of ethereum in their bank to represent a majority of the vote (which is based upon how much ethereum you have). Note the highlight line from their FAQ.  Tell me that isn't an incentive for a bad actor(s) to try and manipulate ETH 2.0 to get 51% of the vote and evict validators and take their stake in the process.

https://launchpad.ethereum.org/faq

What exactly is a validator?
A validator is an entity that participates in the consensus of the Ethereum 2.0 protocol.
Or in plain english, a human running a computer process.
This process proposes and vouches for new blocks to be added to the blockchain.
In other words, you can think of a validator as a voter for new blocks.The more votes a block gets, the more likely it is to be added to the chain.
Importantly, a validator’s vote is weighted by the amount it has at stake.

[BloxStaking]

With the introduction of PoS, ETH is becoming more and more centralized rather than becoming decentralized. Exchanges like Binance and people like CZ are always willing to control the market and exert huge centralization over the crypto community and this was possibly true when he was willing to do a 51% attack by bribing miners and reversing the bitcoin chain. Nowadays the primary purpose of any cryptocurrency has become a mere speculation, so obviously ETH would shoot up in price if there are more proper developments taking over but on the other hand if there are worse speculations going over and in the process we would be suffering from a bear market. This is why a mineable PoW and ASIC resistant currency like Monero would offer an excellent decentralization while comparing to Bitcoin or a PoS coin like Ethereum.

Ethereum Classic is more or less an useless mineable currency, i.e they are only used for mining and are suffering severe 51% attacks now and then. So probably ETC is geared more towards making money by offering a better mining solution rather than any use cases. ETC becoming decentralized would never make the coin superior to ETH atleast in terms of making profits as ETH provides one among the best platforms on the decentralized web to deploy contracts. This could never be achieved by a centralized chain like BSC but there are still quite a few possibilities DOT might be looking as the future ETH with more scalability and thereby providing similar use cases of ETH.

A mere $5k per coin would place the total valuation of Ethereum at $500 billion, but there are centralized chains like BSC which offers better scalability in deploying contracts so possibly there could be stiff competition for ETH in terms of hitting $5k price.

Exactly. The concentration of ETH's supply among a few stakers (validators) should be a real concern for those supporting the decentralization of Blockchain technology. It seems to me that ETH devs only care about convenience than true decentralization. It's always been about the money, instead of making crypto/Blockchain land a better place. Once ETH becomes a full-fledged PoS cryptocurrency, big exchanges will dominate the Blockchain. I believe that ETH miners will migrate into ETC, making the latter blockchain network bigger and stronger than ever. One thing for sure, is that ETC has been a victim of constant 51% attacks over time. It's hoped that with the ETH 2.0 upgrade, this will no longer become an issue.

Nonetheless, I believe that staking ETH yourself will only be good for making short term profits than anything else. Don't expect to take ETH seriously as the network will become less decentralized over time. ETH will remain actively traded on the market as long as people keep pouring money into it. If you care about decentralization, then I'd suggest you look elsewhere. Mining ETC or even Bitcoin itself might be a better option than staking centralized coins. Just my opinion

As I understand it, and correct me if I am wrong a these points.

1. Right now the only smart move if you looking to be a ETH 2. staker (validator) is spinning up a VPS with companies like Amazon/Google/Azure.  You are going to want at least 4 9's possibly 5 of reliability and uptime.  Because if your down, your penalized. 

2. You can't get out right now if want to (phase 0) until phase (1.5) sometime between now and 2022/23?  Which means if ethereum is tanking between now and then you lose,  on the flip side if ethereum jumps to 4K you can't liquidate either.  And you have ask to withdraw (stop validating) so if a number of validators want out, they could be blocked for a period of time.

3. Penalties are severe for inability to participate as a validator in the network.  No exceptions give in their documentation for natural disasters (hurricane or earthquake for example) or man made (damage infrastructure due to human involvement).  In theory (honestly that is all we have now is theory) a validator could lose their entire stake if a majority of the network decides to take it.  It doesn't matter the reason.  If a majority agrees your out, your out.

Finally it looks like Ethereum 2.0 will devolve to a few validators (couple of hundred or less) as they purge their numbers over time and via the normal acts of transactions accumulate enough of ethereum in their bank to represent a majority of the vote (which is based upon how much ethereum you have). Note the highlight line from their FAQ.  Tell me that isn't an incentive for a bad actor(s) to try and manipulate ETH 2.0 to get 51% of the vote and evict validators and take their stake in the process.

https://launchpad.ethereum.org/faq

What exactly is a validator?
A validator is an entity that participates in the consensus of the Ethereum 2.0 protocol.
Or in plain english, a human running a computer process.
This process proposes and vouches for new blocks to be added to the blockchain.
In other words, you can think of a validator as a voter for new blocks.The more votes a block gets, the more likely it is to be added to the chain.
Importantly, a validator’s vote is weighted by the amount it has at stake.

{I'm all in favour of ETH staking, so I'm very biased.}
I'm aware that there is an alarming degree of centralization at the moment, but it's still the 'least' decentralized, man-made option (besides BTC of course), and POS should even out the playing field even more. Let me explain.

The centralized exchanges/ providers are the easier option today, and therefore attracts many people into the wrong places, rendering it (alas temporarily) more centralized than anticipated.
But just like DEFI and DEXs took a long time to 'get it right' - so will staking providers and solutions. Today Uniswap or Compound are just as big / impressive as centralized solutions.
At the end of the day, providers (just like ourselves) will be able to put up a real fight against the Binances of the world.
There are a lot of recent developments, scheduled to happen around the upcoming 'merge' that will help make staking 'truly' decentralized.
I wrote down an example about it today: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5349381.msg57465896#msg57465896 (again slight shill)

In terms of rewards and APR, keep im mind that after the merge, not sure for how long, we should expect significantly higher rewards.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ethstaker/comments/muepnz/eth_20_validator_152_apr_after_the_merge/