Rocket Pool Made It Cheaper to Stake ETH Through Its Platform Following Ethereum Shanghai Upgrade

The staking protocol gave users access to their staking rewards and lowered the barrier of entry to create an Ethereum validator.

AccessTimeIconApr 18, 2023 at 7:04 p.m. UTC
Updated May 9, 2023 at 4:12 a.m. UTC
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Rocket Pool, a decentralized Ethereum-based staking service, deployed its Atlas upgrade Monday night, introducing architectural changes and making the protocol compatible with Ethereum’s Shapella hard fork upgrade.

Rocket Pool’s recent upgrade gives node operators immediate access to their staking rewards and lowers the barrier of entry to spin up an Ethereum validator, or “minipool,” in the protocol’s parlance. Instead of providing 16 ether (ETH), node operators can supply just eight plus some RPL – Rocket Pool’s governance token – to form a minipool, decreasing the amount of capital required to participate in Ethereum’s staking process.

“Minipools with only 8 ETH bonded by their owning node operator are matched with 24 ETH from the staking pool (provided by rETH holders) in order to make a validator,” according to Rocket Pool documents.

RPL has rallied almost 30% to $55.37 in the six days since Shapella, per CoinGecko. Rocket Pool’s total value locked (TVL) increased more than 20% to $1.47 billion in the same period, making it the third-largest liquid staking entity, trailing only Lido and Coinbase, data from DefiLlama shows.

Edited by Nick Baker.

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Sage D. Young

Sage D. Young was a tech protocol reporter at CoinDesk. He owns a few NFTs, gold and silver, as well as BTC, ETH, LINK, AAVE, ARB, PEOPLE, DOGE, OS, and HTR.


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