Why is my validator staking rewards rate higher or lower than I expected?
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Validator rewards vary naturally due to how the Ethereum protocol randomly selects single validators to propose blocks.
Over a long time period, all MetaMask validators are expected to earn a similar reward rate, close to the expected rate presented in the staking widget (see How do validator staking rewards work?). However, since validators are randomly selected by the Ethereum protocol to propose blocks, rewards may be higher for a short period of time if the validator is selected and the block offers high MEV rewards. Similarly, rewards may be lower if the validator has not yet been selected to propose a block.
With 1 million active validators at the time of writing, and one block proposed every 12 seconds, each validator is expected to propose a block every four months.
Reward variability in the wild
This is what a validator's rewards look like over a short period of time:
And this is what a validator's rewards look like over a long period of time, clearly showing spikes where it was selected for block proposal:
In the above example, the validator has proposed seven blocks over the last 18 months, with rewards ranging between 0.04 ETH and 0.16 ETH.