Validators earned $46 million in the first week of May due to an increase in the staking rewards rate, which is a metric for the annualized yield of validators. According to the data, validators earned 24,997 Ether (ETH) during the week, representing a 40% increase over last week’s revenue of $33 million, when 18,339 ETH were distributed as rewards.
The recent trading craze of a new memecoin called Pepe (PEPE) is the reason behind the increased rewards for validators. Over the past week, the average fee on the Ethereum network exceeded 100 gwei, marking the highest level since May 2022. As gas fees rise, end users will pay more than $30 per swap, resulting in of higher fee income for validators from processing transactions and regular validator rewards.
Beaconcha.in states that the present staking rate indicates the expected annual return for validators. To participate in the network’s consensus process, Ethereum validators are required to stake a minimum of 32 ETH, which is worth roughly $58,000.
There are two types of rewards recognized by the ETH Store, a company that measures reward rates: consensus rewards for proposing and verifying blocks and transaction fees for processing transactions on the Ethereum network.
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Since the Ethereum network moved to a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism with The Merge last year, and after the recent Shapella upgrade that enabled validator withdrawals for the first time, ETH staking gained great importance in institutions.
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