Key Takeaways
- The latest service enables Ethermine members to collectively stake their ETH and earn interest on top of their deposits.
- The Ethermine Staking service will allow users to lock up a minimum of 0.1 ETH, which is approximately $159.
- The Ethermine Staking pool offers stakers an annual ETH interest rate of 4.43%, which will not be made available in the United States.
The world’s largest Ether(ETH) mining pool has announced the launch of a new staking service. The latest development comes two weeks before the official launch of the much anticipated Ethereum Merge.
The latest service, offered via Bitfly, enables Ethermine members to collectively stake their ETH and earn interest on top of their deposits.
As per the official announcement, the Ethermine Staking service will allow users to lock up a minimum of 0.1 ETH, which is approximately $159. However, solo staking requires an immense amount of ETH (at least 32 ETH or $51K).
The Ethermine Staking pool will offer stakers an annual ETH interest rate of 4.43%, and it will not be made available in the United States.
To provide the service, Bitfly—will charge a sliding fee that decreases the more ETH is pledged. Users who contribute under 32 ETH will be charged a premium of 15%.
ETH staking stands out from other similar ETH staking pools because it runs on ETH.STORE a reference rate created by Bitfly that calculates a daily average financial return for validators staking ETH.
The Ethereum blockchain is transitioning from its current proof-of-work mining consensus to proof-of-stake. The Merge date is officially scheduled for September 15–16, following the final Goerli testnet integration to the Beacon Chain on August 11.
At present, miners can create new Ether (ETH) by pledging a huge amount of computing power. After the Merge, validators will be required to pledge large amounts of pre-existing ETH instead to validate blocks, creating more ETH and earning staking rewards.
Currently, over 223,000 active miners are using the Ethermine Ethereum pool, generating a total hash rate of around 264 TH/s.
Transitioning to staking will render the hardware used by all of those miners redundant, which is why Ethermine called on them to join some of their other high-performing pools and continue PoW mining.
Throughout September, the mining pool will be offering a 0% fee promotion for its ETC, RVN, ERGO, and BEAM mining pools.
Ethermine came under the media limelight last week when it decided to stop processing blocks that include Tornado Cash transactions following the OFAC sanctions on Tornado Cash. With the Merge, PoS will become a more popular alternative to Proof of Work, the first consensus mechanism developed for cryptocurrencies.
Since proof of stake could help cut the ETH network consumption by 99%, it has gotten more popular as debates are sparking on how crypto mining affects the planet.
Despite the Merge being welcomed by several centralized exchanges, the crypto market and its stakeholders worry that the upcoming Merge could adversely impact the blockchain-based stablecoins and DeFi applications.
Some critics have also raised concerns with the Merge, as they look to protect the interests of Ethereum PoW miners who have been used to being rewarded in ETH for supporting the PoW consensus model.
