Since Ethereum transitioned to Proof-of-Stake on September 15th, staked ETH and the active validator count have steadily increased on the network. This continued growth is a positive sign for network health, long-term growth, and a successful merge in the eyes of operators:
The chart below shows the participation rate of validators on the network. Due to the size and magnitude of the upgrade to Proof-of-Stake, a small drop in participation was expected, however, the participation rate continues to look very healthy overall:
In terms of the overall network functionality, epochs (displayed below) continue to finalize in a timely manner. The color of the slots below indicate if the slot has been proposed (green), missed (red), or coming in the future (grey). The bar below the epochs displays the total participation during the period:
In other words – the network is operating smoothly. Ethereum’s transition to Proof-of-Stake is a massive technical accomplishment for all Ethereum developers, validators, users, and community members.
MEV: How have rewards changed post-merge?
So far, early indications appear that mev-boost is increasing ETH staking rewards by 4-6%. In some cases, proposers who use mev-boost have been able to boost their staking reward by over 100%+.
The average mev-boost block is currently around 0.16 ETH, compared to 0.09 ETH for vanilla blocks. Cumulative daily ETH paid to validators from mev-boost continues to grow:
Flashbots is reporting that ~26% of block producers have mev-boost active, and this is growing at a fast rate. The visual from @eliasimos below shows which block producers have activated mev-boost so far:
Post-merge MEV architecture achieves greater decentralization of MEV by allowing all validators to participate in MEV activities, like mev-boost. Pre-merge, participation was more limited to a set of trusted miners.
Learn more about MEV, and Figment’s MEV policy here.
Inflation Change Post-Merge
A heavily discussed topic pre-merge was the potential change in inflation that Ethereum could experience. So far, Proof-of-Stake Ethereum inflation is coming in at a rate of 0.20%, compared to Proof-of-Work Ethereum at 3.79%, and Bitcoin at 1.72%. At this rate, it will take Bitcoin 3 additional halvenings (~10 years) to match Proof-of-Stake Ethereum’s inflation rate.
While Proof-of-Stake Ethereum is not yet deflationary, it is encouraging that the network can maintain network security with a very low issuance.
Energy consumption change
“Ethereum is a green blockchain.” The transition to Proof-of-Stake reduced Ethereum’s energy consumption by ~99%. Ethereum’s transition to Proof-of-Stake secures the network by using staked ETH rather than using energy through mining. The energy used for Proof-of-Stake Ethereum is roughly equal to the cost of running a laptop for each node on the network.
Learn more about Ethereum’s energy consumption here.
Staking Ethereum
If you are interested in staking over 32 Ethereum, Figment offers a host of services aimed at delivering safe, reliable staking rewards for your assets. Not only do we provide some of the highest quality staking infrastructure in the industry, we also offer robust staking data and rewards reporting, rewards optimization, regulatory and tax compliance reporting, active participation in protocol governance, and guaranteed uptime and protection against missed rewards and slashing penalties. If you are interested in staking +32 ETH, contact us.
Sources
- https://beaconcha.in/charts/participation_rate
- https://beaconcha.in/charts/slotviz
- https://www.mevboost.org/
- https://dune.com/ChainsightAnalytics/mev-after-ethereum-merge
- https://ultrasound.money/
- https://beaconscan.com/stat/validatortotaldailyincome
- https://ethereum.org/en/energy-consumption/
- https://twitter.com/AdrianoFeria/status/1572291693755383808
- https://transparency.flashbots.net/
