Following the Merge, Ethereum’s staking rewards reached a record high of 8.6%, with validators earning an impressive $46 million in the first week of May, attributed to the influence of the memecoin craze.
Validators earned a total income of $46 million in the first week of May as a result of the increase in the staking rewards rate, which is a metric for the annualized yield of validators. According to data, validators earned 24,997 Ether in the week, representing a 40% increase over the previous week’s income of $33 million, when 18,339 ETH were distributed as rewards.
The surge in gas fees on the Ethereum network, driven by the popularity of the memecoin Pepe trading, has led to increased gratitude among validators. Average fees exceeding 100 gwei, the highest level since May 2022, have caused end users to pay over $30 per swap. This rise in gas fees has not only resulted in higher fee income for validators from transaction processing but has also complemented their regular validator rewards.
Beaconcha.in states that the present staking rate signifies the anticipated annualized return for validators. In order to engage in the network’s consensus procedure, validators on Ethereum are mandated to stake a minimum of 32 ETH, valued at roughly $58,000.
There are two types of rewards identified by ETH Store, a company that measures reward rates: consensus rewards for proposing and attesting blocks and transaction fees for processing transactions on the Ethereum network.
After Ethereum’s transition to a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism with The Merge and the recent Shapella upgrade that allowed validator withdrawals, ETH staking has garnered substantial attention from institutional players, emphasizing its growing significance.
