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This tutorial will teach you how to stake ETH right in your imToken wallet. It also covers the advantages and disadvantages of different staking providers and approaches.

Different Ways of Staking ETH

How you stake your ETH differs in terms of security and complexity. Let’s start with the security aspect. 

To participate in ETH staking, you transfer 32 ETH to a smart contract and receive a voucher for your stake on the consensus layer (formerly called the Beacon Chain).

Likewise, you can stake ETH by creating a wallet on the consensus layer. Remember, you only *truly* own the ETH tokens if you created the consensus layer wallet yourself.

Creating the consensus layer wallet gives you two sets of keys: signing and withdrawal keys.

  1. Signing keys are used to validate blocks.
  2. Withdrawal keys are used to retrieve the deposited ETH and revenue.

Therefore the ownership and security of the funds depend on who holds the keys and in what way.

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How to Stake ETH in imToken

imToken tries to integrate as many ETH staking services as possible to provide more options to users. So far, you can choose between full custodial services, non-custodial services and staking pools.

To access the staking features, download the imToken app at token.im (if you haven’t downloaded) and open it. After successfully creating/importing your wallet, switch to one of your ETH wallets.

Click ‘Stake’ below your wallet balance for an overview of ETH staking DApps. 

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You will find Lido, Rocket Pool, HashQuark, stake.fish, StakedUs. Let’s see the differences between these DApps and how to use them.

Staking Pools: Lido and Rocket Pool

Lido

Lido is a liquid staking solution for Proof-of-Stake (PoS) blockchains, including Ethereum, Polygon, and Solana.

Features of staking through Lido:

  • Providing stETH(staked ETH) to make the staked assets more liquid.
  • No minimum deposit amount for staking.
  • Based on the reputation and past performance, the DAO votes on quality node operators to reduce slashing risk due to equipment malfunction or mismanagement.
  • The withdrawal key is split into 11 parts, each held by a different public figure in the industry, making it more difficult to collude.

Note: Lido charges its users a staking fee of 10% of the generated rewards.

Open this link to learn more: How to stake ETH with Lido

Rocket Pool

As a protocol offering decentralized ETH staking services, Rocket Pool mainly serves two user groups: regular stakers and node operators.

  • Regular Stakers: They earn ETH rewards by staking as low as 0.01 ETH without worrying about node management.
  • Node Operators: They earn ETH and RPL rewards by staking as low as 17.6 ETH (16 ETH + some RPL tokens worth 1.6 ETH). However, they must maintain and manage their nodes in the long run.

Rocket Pool combines the 16 ETH from a node operator with another 16 ETH from the rETH staking pool to create a new validator on the consensus layer.

Click this link to learn more: How to stake ETH with Rocket Pool

Non-Custodial: InfStones

Non-custodial staking is also known as "staking as a service" or "node as a service." Its operating model is similar to running a web server on a hosted service like AWS.

Non-custodial staking is suitable for users with higher asset security requirements. It allows staking users to retain ownership and control of staked assets while earning stable returns.

Click here to learn more: How to Participate in Non-Custodial ETH Staking in imToken

Custodial

HashQuark and Cream are listed in imToken and provide custodial services. You can access them through the ‘ETH Staking’ section in your Ethereum wallet in imToken. However, there are more custodial services not listed on imToken. 

It’s important to note that custodial services don’t give you any control over your funds. They are similar to centralized exchanges. So, consider the non-custodial alternative if you want to control ownership of your funds.

We hope this tutorial has empowered you with the knowledge and skills necessary for successful ETH staking. Join the conversation on our social media platforms and get all your questions answered: