The liquid staking sector is Consensys’s target market for their MetaMask Pooled Staking service.
Launching its pooled staking service, Consensys’s popular Ethereum wallet MetaMask aims to compete with the liquid restaking market.
The pooled staking service by MetaMask, which was announced on June 12, enables users to stake Ethereum with allocations lower than the standard 32 ETH minimum.
Validators run by Consensys stake users’ ETH, and a minimum deposit of 32 ETH was originally needed. Ethereum rewards obtained via pooled staking are subject to a 15% fee by Consensys. Any moment is a good time for users to unstake.
Consensys predicted that “99 percent of Ethereum holders will have less than 32 Ethereum.” “Earn rewards for helping to the network’s security by staking any amount of ETH using MetaMask’s innovative solution.”
Consensys is aiming to continue bringing out MetaMask Pooled Staking to users over the next few days, while it is now accessible to a restricted portion of Metamask users. Although customers in the United States and the United Kingdom will not be able to use the product during its first launch, Consensys has said that it intends to accommodate these users in the future.
Senior Product Manager Matthieu Saint Olive of Consensys expressed his excitement about expanding the availability of their staking solution to a larger number of MetaMask users.
There are over 33,000 validators on Consensys, distributed across several geographies, and they control over one million staked Ether. The business has not had any cutting occurrences and has a validator participation rate of over 99.9 percent.
Consensys joins other prominent participants in the liquid staking market, such Lido and Rocket Pool, with the debut of pooled staking positions.
Users may also pool their assets with a third-party validator via liquid staking, which costs a fee but rewards them with liquid staking tokens (LSTs) that can be utilized in DeFi protocols or sold whenever they choose. Staking Ethereum natively on the Beach Chain requires 32 ETH collateral, however LST protocols can allow users to stake without depositing that much.
Dune Analytics reports that liquid staking has grown into a significant industry, with the leading LST protocol, Lido, controlling 28.6% of all staked Ether at now. After Coinbase (12.9%), the liquid restaking protocol EtherFi (4.6%), Kiln (3.3%), Binance (3.3%), and Renzo (3%), in that order.
The amount of Ethereum available for staking is around 27.2% at now. Despite Consensys’ ongoing legal battle with the SEC, the business has announced an extended staking service.
In April, the company took legal action against the SEC in an effort to have the courts determine that Ether is a commodity and not a security asset, therefore rendering the SEC’s efforts to regulate the asset illegal.
Two weeks prior to the action, the regulator had sent Consensys with a Wells Notice, which usually comes before a formal complaint and alerts a business that the SEC has finished an investigation against them.
Also Read: The MetaMask wallet now supports native Ethereum staking
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