This report covers all of Figment’s active Ethereum validators throughout October, November, and December of 2025. On Ethereum, we are one of the largest independent protocol staking providers. Unless otherwise stated, all of the data utilized in this report is powered by Figment’s Data team.
In order to gain a complete understanding of a validator’s performance, it is crucial to consider various factors and evaluate their performance over an extended time frame. Comparing performance across validators or groups of validators is a nuanced exercise that requires controlling for randomness or luck. For example, validators can be chosen to perform specific higher-reward duties, like proposing blocks or participating in the sync committee, more frequently than expected. They can also be lucky if they are chosen to propose a block during times of higher demand for blockspace and thereby receive higher execution layer rewards.
Q4 Metrics:
- ~30% of ETH Total Supply Staked
- 6.34% share of staked ETH by Figment validators
- Figment’s average SRR Rate throughout Q4 was 2.97%, higher than the network average 2.94%
- 0 Double-sign Slashing Events on Figment validators
- Figment Ethereum validators participation rate in Q4 was 99.9%
Ethereum: Market Leadership and Institutional Trust
Figment is one of the largest Ethereum staking operators globally, securing over 6% of total staked ETH on the network.
Institutional participants, asset managers, custodians, exchanges, and protocol foundations, consistently choose Figment because of its long-term performance and ability to operate securely at scale.
For many institutions, validator selection is less about chasing marginal rewards and more about choosing a partner that can be trusted across market cycles, protocol upgrades, and evolving regulatory environments. Delegating to a top-tier operator with meaningful market share reduces operational uncertainty, simplifies internal risk reviews, and aligns with fiduciary expectations. Figment’s position as a leading Ethereum staking provider makes it a natural default for organizations prioritizing trust, resilience, and long-term alignment with the network.
What are Risk-Adjusted Rewards?
As Ethereum stakers navigate the landscape of staking rewards, it is crucial to understand Figment’s definition of risk-adjusted rewards and what they mean in real terms. The concept of risk-adjusted rewards is meant to recognize that there are risks involved in generating staking rewards and that these risks should be accounted for and minimized as much as possible.
We recognize there are many risks of staking and have designed our infrastructure to minimize them. Within this framework, Figment seeks to maximize rewards for customers.
While some risks such as security and regulatory are well-known, other considerations such as engineering risks can be more nuanced. Learn more about what risk-adjusted rewards are, and their significance in Ethereum staking.
Security & Risk Management
Security is foundational to Figment’s staking model. As institutional participation in Ethereum staking grows, risk management, operational discipline, and infrastructure assurance matter as much as headline rewards. Figment is purpose-built to meet these requirements through a non-custodial, safety-first operating model designed to protect capital across market cycles and evolving threat environments.
Non-Custodial, Safety-First Architecture
Figment operates a non-custodial infrastructure model. We do not custody client assets, operate wallets with signing authority, or control customer funds. Clients retain full control of their keys, while Figment focuses exclusively on running secure, high-performance validator infrastructure.
Our systems are architected with separation of duties, ensuring validator operations, key management, and governance controls are intentionally isolated to reduce correlated risk.
Central to this approach is Figment’s “Safety Over Liveness” philosophy. We take a deliberately conservative stance toward upgrades, configuration changes, and dependency updates—prioritizing slashing avoidance and capital protection over marginal uptime or short-term performance gains.
Defense-in-Depth Security Program
Figment’s security program is built on multiple reinforcing layers, including:
- Multi-cloud and bare-metal redundancy
- Zero-trust access controls and hardened key management
- Multi-party change management and approval workflows
- Continuous monitoring, testing, and dependency review
- Rigorous vendor risk management, treated as an extension of our internal security program
- SOC 2 Type II–certified controls, validated through independent audits
This defense-in-depth model is designed to reduce both technical and operational risk while maintaining resilience under adverse conditions.
Operational Risk Management
Operationally, Figment reduces correlated risk by maintaining diversity across:
- Consensus and execution clients (EL/CL)
- Geographic regions
- Infrastructure providers
For Ethereum execution-layer rewards, Figment runs a curated set of OFAC-compliant MEV relays, selected for reliability, latency, and win-rate. This approach balances compliance requirements with consistent execution performance, supporting long-term, risk-adjusted rewards for institutional stakers.
Validator Distribution
Validator Distribution is a core component of Figment’s Ethereum staking architecture and a critical factor in managing risk at institutional scale. Figment’s ETH validators are deliberately distributed to reduce correlated risk across geography, infrastructure providers, and execution and consensus clients, ensuring resilience through network upgrades, client releases, and periods of elevated network activity.
Today, Figment operates Ethereum validators across 3 countries, with active support for multiple consensus and execution clients. This diversified approach reinforces Ethereum’s decentralization while providing institutions with predictable performance, operational stability, and confidence at scale.
Ethereum Rewards
When staking Ethereum, validators receive both consensus layer (CL) and execution layer (EL) rewards. CL rewards account for the majority of the rewards at ~93% in Q4, compared to ~7% for EL rewards.
Consensus Layer Rewards
CL rewards are allocated to validators for attesting, proposing blocks, and participating in the sync committee. Attesting is a frequent occurrence and is primarily driven by the participation rate of a validator which is discussed later in the report. Figment’s performance in Q4 for median CL rewards was 0.002028 ETH per validator per day, slightly higher than the network median of 0.002026. In the event that a validator is selected to propose a block, they also receive EL rewards.
Execution Layer Rewards
Validators only receive EL rewards when they are proposing blocks, which is a random and infrequent event (happening, typically, once every 150 days or so for a validator with 32 ETH staked, given the current amount of ETH staked). Even if a validator is randomly selected to propose a block, the size of the rewards is related to the demand for block space. Priority fees and Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) rewards tend to be higher during periods of elevated demand.
Using the median as a metric for reporting EL rewards is a more reliable method than using the mean, primarily due to the variability and presence of large outliers in rewards resulting from MEV activities. The median, as a measure of central tendency, is less sensitive to extreme values and outliers, providing a more representative value for the typical reward earned by validators.
In Q4, when Figment validators were selected to propose blocks, they received a median of 0.011768 ETH, over 10% higher than the network median of 0.01056 ETH. With EL rewards being random, we expect this number to fluctuate quarter by quarter.
Between these two reward types, CL rewards are much less volatile and less prone to the “luck factor” than EL rewards, the image below displays the difference in variability between EL rewards and CL rewards.
Participation Rate
Every epoch validators attest to the state of Ethereum, where an attestation includes the beacon block root, a source checkpoint, and a target checkpoint, among other data. Implicitly, new blocks accrue votes through these attestations and achieve consensus and ultimately finalization (when the epoch they are contained in becomes finalized).
Participation Rate is a measure of how often a validator successfully attests when it is selected. A validator could be unable to attest for many reasons, including downtime or misconfiguration. As a result, the Participation Rate is a reliable indicator of uptime and validator stability.
In Q4, Figment performed with an average Participation Rate of 99.9%, slightly higher than the network average of 99.6%
Slashing
Figment’s performance throughout Q4 2025 remained strong, with no slashing penalties. During Q4 2025, there were 27 slashing events on the network.
Slashing is a large risk to validator performance and has a significant negative impact on rewards.
Figment pioneered the concept of “Safety Over Liveness” with respect to operating validator infrastructure, which, among other things, minimizes the risk of being slashed. We also offer coverage to mitigate losses in the case of a slashing event.
Stake ETH with Figment
Figment is the leading provider of staking infrastructure. Figment provides the complete staking solution for over 1000+ institutional clients, including asset managers, exchanges, wallets, foundations, custodians, and large token holders, to earn rewards on their digital assets. Figment is one of the largest non-custodial staking providers on Ethereum. Institutional staking services from Figment include seamless point-and-click staking, portfolio reward tracking, API integrations, audited infrastructure, and slashing protection. This all leads Figment’s mission to support the adoption, growth, and long-term success of the digital asset ecosystem.
When it comes to Staking Ethereum, Figment offers:
- Risk-Adjusted Rewards: Figment, utilizing Flashbots’ MEV-Boost to connect to multiple OFAC compliant MEV relays, optimizes risk-adjusted rewards for customers.
- Multi-Client Infrastructure: Figment supports both the Lighthouse and Prysm Ethereum clients. Multiple client implementations can make the network stronger by reducing its dependency on a single codebase. Figment supports multiple clients to avoid client concentration and reduce the impact of a client-specific problem leading to potential penalties.
- Click-to-Stake: Experience the best staking interface for ETH with access to the Figment app. View your staking positions in real-time as well as stake, unstake, and view rewards. Track your portfolio across multiple networks and download detailed reports.
- Optimized Rewards Reporting: Access detailed and comprehensive rewards statements in various formats.
Figment offers point-and-click staking, insights dashboards, rewards tracking, and statements providing a seamless Ethereum staking experience. Individual users maintain control with true non-custodial staking while institutions benefit from Figment’s robust infrastructure that provides security and optimized rewards.
Want to know how Figment can assess your staking performance on Ethereum? Schedule a meeting with us to understand how we provide detailed insights and strategies to help you maximize your rewards.
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