Pooling Our Resources - The Daily Gwei #443
Pooling Our Resources - The Daily Gwei #443
A rocket to the decentralized stars.
Rocket Pool is one of my favorite projects in the Ethereum ecosystem because it embodies the very thing that we’re all working towards - decentralization. Of course, Rocket Pool is focusing on a specific and very important aspect of Ethereum’s decentralization - making it easy for anyone to stake their ETH in a self-sovereign way. They’ve been working on this for quite a while (over 4 years) and they’ve been on mainnet for 3 months now and have already seen incredible growth.
Not only does Rocket Pool now account for 1% of all Ethereum Beacon Chain validators, the protocol is also doing extremely well when it comes to client diversity with only 10% of Rocket Pool validators using the current supermajority client (Prysm). I’ve explained in previous posts why client diversity is critically important for the Beacon Chain so I won’t rehash that here - though you can check out this website and this website for more information and resources. And also a piece I wrote from July 2020 on client diversity here.
Another thing that Rocket Pool has done really well is made it easy for anyone to stake their ETH by providing excellent documentation for users to work through. On top of this, Rocket Pool’s staked positioned are represented as a token known as rETH so users also have the option to just purchase this token to instantly get exposure to staked ETH. Of course, there are other solutions out there such as Lido that has a staked token derivative known as stETH, but it is does not currently give users decentralized exposure to Ethereum staking.
Finally, Rocket Pool’s community is one of the best and most passionate that I’ve come across in crypto. They really do care deeply about upholding the values of decentralization and want to help make it super easy for everyone to stake their ETH in a decentralized way. In a sea of scams, ponzis, “moonboys” and outright frauds, communities like Rocket Pool are a breath of fresh air. I’d also be remiss not to mention the /r/ethstaker community which regularly works together with the Rocket Pool community on various staking-related initiatives.
If we expect the grand Ethereum vision to play out like we want it to, then tools like Rocket Pool are an absolute necessity that we should be doing more to promote. I would much rather people stake their ETH with Rocket Pool and other decentralized staking service providers than do it via a centralized exchange or centralized staking service provider. This way, we can keep Ethereum as decentralized as possible and also cultivate a really healthy community that will continue to embody Ethereum’s core values, mission and ethos.
Have a great day everyone,
Anthony Sassano
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All information presented above is for educational purposes only and should not be taken as investment advice.