On February 9, according to information provided by DefiLlama, Ethereum staking service Rocket Pool exceeded a total value locked (TVL) of $1 billion. This development takes place just under two years after the introduction of the mainnet for the decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol on November 9, 2021. Rocket Pool, which offers what is known as a liquid staking solution for Ethereum , gives customers the option to join an existing Ethereum decentralized node operator or operate their own node.

Users can run their own node with just 16 Ether (ETH), as opposed to the 32 ETH specified by the network, with another 16 ETH coming from a group of users joining a decentralized node operator. This is a significant improvement over traditional staking solutions, as the capital requirements are significantly lower. The latter has a much lower minimum deposit requirement of just 0.01 ETH. In exchange for their ETH, depositors receive a liquid staking token known as rETH. This token serves as evidence that the user is eligible to stake rewards over time and accumulates performance.

Rocket Pool node operators are eligible to charge up to 7.26% per year in compensation for verifying transactions on the Ethereum blockchain. Those interested, however, are eligible to obtain 4.68%. Both fees are subject to change and depend on the supply and demand of nodes on the Ethereum blockchain, as well as the total number of transactions. Alterations in the price at which ETH is sold on the market may make the incentives obsolete or more valuable.

Right now, there are 385,344 ETH invested in the protocol and there are 2,068 node operators. The smart contracts used by Rocket Pool have been vetted by Sigma Prime, ConsenSys, and Trail of Bits, respectively. On top of that, Immunefi is in charge of running the project’s bug bounty program. The creators of Ethereum have said that the Shanghai upgrade to the blockchain would likely be operational in the month of March. Since the network successfully made the switch to proof-of-stake in September 2022, users will be able to withdraw any ETH they have staked, as well as any prizes they have accumulated.