MetaMask Institutional enables solitary ETH staking

MetaMask Institutional will facilitate the development of additional Ethereum validators after the announcement of a new staking marketplace for its institutional customers.

Institutions using Meta Mask’s institutional-grade wallet and custody service will have access to four vendors for ETH staking management: ConsenSys staking, Allnodes, Blockdaemon, and Kiln. The marketplace attempts to ease access to and administration of solo staking, enabling institutions to become validators on the Ethereum network.

Since October 2021, MetaMask Institutional (MMI) has been operational, offering a platform with a broader range of controls and features better suited to enterprises and corporations.

As previously discussed, the MetaMask retail wallet was no longer suitable for customers or organizations handling millions of dollars worth of bitcoins.

The new staking marketplace will aim to reduce the complexity of institutional staking, which includes changing prices, terms, conditions, refunds, and reporting criteria.

Johann Bornman, MMI product lead at ConsenSys, said that the company has seen a change from liquid staking to 32 ETH staking, which he thinks is driven not just by Ethereum’s “Merge” in 2022 but also by the impending Shanghai/Capella upgrade.

Shanghai will enable deposit withdrawals for Ethereum validators, enabling lone stalkers who have staked at least 32 ETH to withdraw their tokens and access their accumulated staking rewards.

Only LP pools previously permitted users to deposit and withdraw lesser amounts of ETH.

Bornman said that the improvement might verify the “rewards profile and time horizon” for staking ETH, which impacts trust in Ethereum staking:

“We believe this staking rate has the potential to increase rapidly in the ensuing years. Over the near term, we have seen a marked increase in ETH2 staking by institutions over the last several months, and this trend will only continue, given the recent upgrade.”

In response, MetaMask Institutional launched its staking marketplace to provide institutions with a straight path to becoming Ethereum validators by staking 32 ETH.

“Our focus is to solve for ETH2 staking given how important we believe data validation of Ethereum is today and will be in the future. We have designed the service to be able to simply and seamlessly expand onto on-chain ETH staking solutions.”

The introduction of the staking marketplace will coincide with the release of an upgraded MMI dashboard, which will have institutional controls, portfolio management, digital asset monitoring with integrated profit-and-loss and performance metrics, and transaction reporting.

In January 2023, MetaMask Institutional released access to ETH LP pool staking using the popular Lido and Rocket Pool protocols, giving institutions access to DeFi pool staking for the first time.