On April 12th at ~ 6:27 PM EST the Ethereum network will upgrade via the Shanghai and Capella ("Shapella") hard forks. The Shapella forks will enable transfers between Ethereum's consensus and execution layers. This will make it possible to access staking rewards, exit from the validator set, or un-stake and withdraw funds.
Shapella allows stakers to upgrade their withdrawal credentials from BLS to ETH keys. Stakers must upgrade the credentials for all their validators to access rewards, un-stake or withdraw funds.
Unfortunately, Ledger will not be supporting the credential upgrade process until late June. As a result, stakers will need to use a command line interface (CLI) tool to upgrade.
See the FAQ below for instructions on exporting keys from a Ledger, and upgrading from BLS to ETH credentials using a CLI. The Kraken Customer Experience team is available 24/7/365 via Zendesk to help with the upgrade process: https://staked.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/requests/new
If you used an ETH address instead of BLS keys when creating your validator, you do not need to upgrade. Your consensus layer rewards will be accessible shortly after the fork, and you can un-stake anytime you want.
Post fork, the protocol will distribute consensus layer rewards automatically to all validators with upgraded credentials. The current distribution frequency is ~ 5 days, and subject to the number of active validators. See the FAQ below for a more detailed explanation of reward frequency.
There are no gas fees for the automatic staking reward sweeps. You do not need to un-stake if you want to access or withdraw your staking rewards. Staked cannot access any consensus layer rewards.
Staked will distribute all execution layer rewards (transaction fees + MEV) earned before the fork in early May to validators with upgraded credentials. Subsequently, Staked will distribute execution layer rewards on a 2 - 3 week cadence.
Upgraded validators can execute voluntary exits, or un-stake, anytime using the Staked website. See the FAQ below for instructions on un-staking and the validator exit queue.
Post Shapella, Staked will charge a 10% commission on all rewards and fees earned by all stakers, including those on the 1-time payment plan.
Staked charges a percentage that is equal to 10% of all consensus and execution layer rewards. To remain non-custodial, Staked only collects this fee from the execution layer rewards. All consensus layer rewards go to the withdrawal credentials of the validator. Since Staked charges a fee on only the execution layer rewards, the percentage will be higher than 10%.
For more information, please visit the Ethereum Foundation’s primer on Withdrawals: https://ethereum.org/en/staking/withdrawals/
https://beaconcha.in/ is a good resource to track the number of active validators.
