Announcing stakefish’s early-bird Ethereum 2.0 staking service fees

A one-time flat fee of 0.1 ETH for each validator until withdrawals are enabled.

stakefish

09 Nov 2020 — 4 min read

It is no secret that we have been hard at work for the past few months to make Ethereum staking easy and accessible to everyone. Our Ethereum 2.0 staking platform is built to enable anyone to stake ETH while maintaining full control. Only you will have the control to withdraw or transfer your ETH when using our platform.

We realize that price is a factor in anyone’s staking platform decision, and that impacts how much we can ask users to pay for our service. We have had many internal discussions on how to set a fee structure that not only makes it affordable for everyone, but is also as simple as possible.

We have settled on an “early-bird” fee structure for our Ethereum 2.0 staking platform:

A one-time flat fee of 0.1 ETH for each validator until withdrawals are enabled.

Please note that this fee is here for a limited time only and is subject to change over the coming months. Anyone who stakes with us during this “early-bird” fee period will lock in this price and will not be required to pay any additional fees until withdrawals are enabled.

What do you mean by “until withdrawals are enabled”?

Ethereum 2.0 is being rolled out in Phases. While Phase 0 starts off with staking, it won’t have any options for stakers to withdraw or transfer. This is a limitation across the entire network and is not specific to stakefish’s validators. The number one priority of Ethereum 2.0 developers is the stability of the network, so withdrawals have not been considered a high priority to implement during Phase 0. This means that once you stake ETH, you have no option to move it to another account, but it is still yours, and only you have access to it.

Withdrawals are not planned until at least Phase 1.5. There is currently no set date for when Phase 1.5 will be rolled out. The wait could be 1 year or longer. Once there is a date set for when withdrawals will be enabled, we will make sure to alert you.

How competitive are these fees?

One metric for looking at our fees is to calculate a break-even point of how long you can expect to take to earn back the fees you pay for using our service. Staking reward rates will vary from 2% to 20% depending on how much ETH is staked overall. For example, if around 10% of total circulating ETH gets staked, the staking reward rate will be roughly 5%. At that rate, based on our current fee structure of 0.1 ETH per validator, you can earn back the fees you pay for a single validator in roughly 23 days.

There’s a lot that goes into calculating a staking reward rate. You can estimate what the staking reward rate will be using our Ethereum 2.0 rewards calculator and the graph below to see how many days it will take you to earn back the fees you pay. Regardless of the number of validators you choose to spin up with us, the break-even point will be the same number of days whether you have 1 validator or 100.

You are most likely staking because you want to contribute to Ethereum’s security and earn staking rewards for doing so. You are long-term aligned with Ethereum’s future and value. We don’t want our fees to be taxing on your long-term position.

Why do you accept only ETH?

First and foremost, we’re running a service on ETH, so we think it’s natural to be collecting fees in ETH. Additionally, we also want to stay long-term aligned with Ethereum’s future. We’ll do our best to ensure that the services we provide and validators we run contribute to its future.

When will I need to pay the fee?

During the sign-up process, our Batch Deposit Contract will prompt you to send ETH for staking and paying the fee simultaneously. For each new validator launched with stakefish, 32.1 ETH will be required. 32 ETH will be used directly for staking, and 0.1 ETH will be used to pay the staking service fee. You will also need a small amount of extra ETH to cover transaction fees.

How frequently do I need to make the fee payments?

Under the early-bird fee structure, only once. Pay 0.1 ETH when you first spin up your validators and you won’t have to worry about any additional fees until withdrawals are enabled!

Can I request a refund?

No, we are not offering any refunds at this time.

What happens when withdrawals are enabled?

There are still a lot of unknowns when it comes to withdrawals. However, these are the steps we will take once the specs around withdrawals become clear.

We will send a high priority email once plans around withdrawals are clearer than they are now. This is dependent on the Ethereum dev team and client teams. We will inform you of the important dates and the changes to our fee schedule. Our fee schedule after withdrawals are enabled will remain competitive. After we announce these plans, we will provide a grace period of at least 2 months so that you can make any decision that is best for you, whether that be to continue to stake with us, move to another service provider, or exit and stop staking all together after withdrawals are enabled.