What is MetaMask Pooled Staking?
MetaMask Pooled Staking is not available to users in the United States or the United Kingdom.
Disclosure: Consensys stakes 1,000 ETH using this offering.
MetaMask Pooled Staking enables you to earn ETH rewards for securing the Ethereum network.
As explained in our What is staking? article, Ethereum depends on a large network of entities—people, companies, organisations—running a copy of the blockchain on software on their device, known as a node. On Ethereum, nodes are known as validators, and there are currently over 1 million active.
For every new block on Ethereum, a single validator is randomly chosen to propose which transactions should be included, and what order they should go in. All other validators must then attest to the validity of the proposed block. In return for supporting this service, the Ethereum protocol rewards the account which deposited ETH into these validators.
Normally, a validator requires a deposit of 32 ETH. This is precisely the service we offer with MetaMask validator staking, but it is a sizable barrier to entry given 99% of ETH wallets hold less than 32ETH.
With MetaMask Pooled Staking, you can take part in staking with any amount of ETH, pooling your ETH with those of others to make up the 32 ETH required for a validator. You then receive a share of the rewards the validator generates, proportional to the deposit you contributed, while MetaMask handles the validators' duties of attesting and proposing new blocks.