# First, let's start with a story that seems unrelated to most people.

In September 2025, the crypto wealth management platform SwissBorg experienced a major security incident, resulting in the theft of approximately $41 million worth of Solana tokens. In the crypto world, such news seems to be all too common. However, the interesting aspect of this incident is that the problem did not lie with the blockchain protocol itself, but rather with an API interface of its infrastructure partner, Kiln, which was compromised.

It's like your bank vault is impenetrable, but the scheduling system of the security company responsible for the cash transport was hacked.

The ripples from this incident quickly spread to Ethereum. As a precaution, Kiln, which was the fifth-largest staking entity on Ethereum at the time, made a difficult but responsible decision: to orderly withdraw all approximately 1.6 million ETH validator nodes it managed.

You can imagine the scene. A giant suddenly decides to exit, instantly overwhelming Ethereum's "exit." The length of the validator exit queue ballooned, with wait times exceeding a record 45 days at one point. This meant that no matter who you were, if you wanted to retrieve your staked assets during that time, you had to wait in that long line.

This incident served as a mirror, clearly reflecting a commonly overlooked reality in the delegated staking model: behind the convenience lies the relinquishment of control, silently bearing systemic risks from third-party infrastructure that you may not even be aware of.

However, in the shadow of this, the value of an ancient and steadfast figure—the Solo Staker—has never been more prominent.

This leads us to the core question we truly want to explore today: In an era where "one-click outsourcing" is so convenient, why do some still choose the "difficult yet glorious" path of independent staking? What dilemmas and pride lie behind this persistence? More importantly, where will this path lead in the future?

Vitalik has profound philosophical thoughts on this. He believes that independent stakers are the most important "extra line of defense" for network decentralization and security. They are a "non-coordinated and diverse group," serving as the ultimate bastion against 51% attacks and censorship pressures.

This is not just a sentiment. Vitalik's belief is gradually being transformed into a reality accessible to independent stakers through a series of carefully designed protocol upgrades and community technological innovations.

Let us delve into this quietly unfolding revolution.

I. The "Four Mountains" Pressing on Independent Stakers

We must first acknowledge that becoming an independent staker is far more than just gathering 32 ETH. That is merely the entry ticket. The real test is the "heavy burden" of day-to-day responsibilities after entering.

The First Mountain: The Mountain of Capital - Opportunities "Locked"

32 ETH is a significant investment today, and this threshold alone deters many. But what’s more troubling is the opportunity cost. Once your assets are staked, they lose liquidity and are firmly locked in the protocol. When new high-yield opportunities arise in the DeFi world, you can only watch helplessly because your "principal" is immobile. This stands in stark contrast to liquid staking, where users can participate in other financial activities at any time using derivative tokens like stETH, achieving "multiple benefits from one fish."

The Second Mountain: The Mountain of Technology - The Daily Life of a "Part-Time Network Administrator"

"There are great beginner guides to help you get started, but you'd better pray nothing goes wrong, or you'll find yourself naked in the wilderness."

This is a heartfelt lament from a technically skilled community member. He spent an entire weekend debugging just to migrate the validator from the cloud to local. This is the daily life of an independent staker: you are not just an investor; you are also a system administrator on call 24/7. Hardware maintenance, network stability, software updates… any mistake in any link could lead to node downtime and loss of earnings.

The Third Mountain: The Mountain of Risk - "Minor Penalties" and "Major Disasters"

In the world of independent stakers, risks come in two distinctly different forms.

One is the offline penalty, which is more like a "minor inconvenience." If your node goes offline briefly due to power or internet outages, you will lose a bit of earnings. Typically, the loss from being offline for a day can be earned back in about a day of being back online, as long as the uptime is above 43%.

The other is slashing, which is a true "major disaster." It targets behaviors that severely jeopardize network security, such as unintentionally running the same validator key on two machines, leading to a "double signing." Although the probability of this happening is extremely low, the consequences are severe: at least 1/32 of the staked amount (usually 1 ETH) is slashed, and the validator is forcibly removed from the network. In the most extreme cases, you could even lose your entire principal. This possibility of "one slip leading to total loss" hangs over your head like a sword of Damocles.

The Fourth Mountain: The Mountain of Time - The Unfathomable "Queue Game"

When you decide to exit and want to retrieve your principal, you will find yourself caught in a long "queue game." To maintain network stability, the Ethereum protocol limits the number of validators that can exit or join each day, which is known as the "Churn Limit" mechanism.

This means you may have to wait a long time. During the Kiln incident, we saw wait times for the exit queue exceed 46 days at one point. For more than a month, your funds are completely locked, unable to respond to any market changes.

Vitalik has a clever analogy for this: staking is like "a soldier bearing the solemn duty of defending the blockchain," and the friction when exiting is an intentional design of the protocol, because "if any proportion of soldiers in the army can leave at any time, then the army cannot unite." This analogy precisely articulates the difficult balance in protocol design between overall network security and individual fund liquidity.

II. New Choices in Ethereum Staking: The Yield Game Between CSM and Independent Stakers

Before we await the dawn of "future lights" like Pectra and DVT, a market-driven, controversial yet attractive "evolutionary branch" has quietly emerged. It directly addresses the core pain points of independent stakers—especially that heavy "mountain of capital"—and proposes a fundamentally different solution.

This is the Community Staking Module (CSM) launched by the liquid staking giant Lido.

The emergence of CSM has opened a fork in the road for independent stakers. The question is no longer just "should I stake independently," but rather: should I adhere to the "purist" route of complete asset independence, or embrace a semi-independent collaborative model where both risk and reward are "leveraged"?

To understand this choice, we need to make a straightforward comparison: input versus output.

Three Identities, One Yield Account

Let’s paint three clear portraits of stakers:

1. Independent Staker (Solo Staker): Like a farmer who owns a whole piece of land. He invests all 32 ETH of capital, takes on all risks, and ultimately reaps 100% of the harvest.

2. CSM Operator: More like a professional manager who works with a margin. He only needs to invest a small amount of collateral (e.g., 1.5 ETH) to stake, gaining the right to manage a validator worth 32 ETH (provided by Lido). He does not own the 32 ETH, but shares in the rewards through his expertise (operating the node) and bears the risk of mismanagement (collateral being slashed).

3. Passive Staker: The purest depositor. He deposits any amount of funds into a bank (like the Lido protocol or Coinbase), which handles all operations, and the depositor simply receives interest after fees are deducted.

The yields and risks of these three identities can be clearly displayed in a table:

The Devil is in the Details: The "Yield Leverage" of CSM

The most striking aspect of the table is undoubtedly the "extremely high" yield rate of CSM operators. The logic behind this is a form of financial leverage: operators use 1.5 ETH of staked capital to leverage the yield rights of a 32 ETH validator. They earn 6% of the rewards generated by the 32 ETH, rather than just the interest on their own 1.5 ETH. Essentially, this is a way to exchange technical services for excess capital returns.

Doesn’t this sound like a perfect deal? It significantly lowers the capital threshold while amplifying returns. For individuals who are technically skilled but lack capital, this is almost a tailor-made solution.

Prerequisites for Becoming a CSM Staker CSM Joining Tutorial

1. Prepare your hardware setup or use cloud services.
2. If you are using your own hardware, install and prepare the operating system and home network for the validator node. For cloud services, choose the appropriate operating system and network configuration.
3. Install and configure your execution layer (EL) and consensus layer (CL) clients, then wait for synchronization.

Total Estimated Cost: $700 for hardware + $100 for electricity + $100/Y for VPN fees (domestic)

Step 1. Validator Key Generation

Generate a new validator key and set the withdrawal address for Lido Withdrawal Vault.

Mainnet Parameters

• Withdrawal Address = 0xB9D7934878B5FB9610B3fE8A5e441e8fad7E293f
• Deposit Amount = 32 ETH
• Chain = mainnet
• Type = (32 ETH) 0x01

Step 2. Validator Client Configuration

Configure your validator client (and/or beacon node), setting the fee_recipient flag to the specified fee recipient address (Lido Execution Layer Reward Pool) and importing the newly generated CSM key vault.

Mainnet Parameters

Lido Execution Layer Reward Pool on mainnet = 0x388C818CA8B9251b393131C08a736A67ccB19297

Step 3. MEV-Boost and CL Configuration

Configure your MEV-Boost service. The min-bid can be configured at the MEV-Boost level or CL client, with the currently acceptable minimum bid maximum based on community consensus, which may change. It should be set to 100%, meaning local load and builder load should have equal weight. The flag should be set to only use relays from the audited MEV-Boost relay list from Lido CSM. 0.07 Builder-boost-factor relay

Step 4. Upload Deposit Data to CSM

Before uploading, ensure that the node is synchronized, running, and ready to activate the validator.

Upload the newly generated deposit data file associated with your CSM key vault to the Lido CSM Widget, providing the required staking amount in ETH/stETH/wstETH.

Step 5: Patiently Wait for Deposit

Wait for your CSM validator key to be deposited through the protocol, and ensure your node remains online during this time! Beginners can try it out on the testnet first.

Testnet Tutorial: https://stakesaurus.notion.site/2712afbe261180df8fc1eb0105d7321a

III. The Dawn of Light: How Protocols and Technology Empower the Lone Warriors

Although solutions like CSM exist, Ethereum developers and the community have not given up on the path of Solo Stakers. A profound evolution is taking place, branching in two directions: one from top-level protocol design and the other from community technological innovation.

Pectra Upgrade - A "Care Package" from the Protocol

The upcoming mainnet Pectra upgrade can be said to be the most staker-friendly change since the merge. It brings a whole suite of "burden-reducing tools":

• Simplified Yield Management (EIP-7251): This is the most intuitive change. It significantly raises the maximum effective balance for validators from 32 ETH to 2048 ETH. What does this mean? For example, if you previously staked 40 ETH, the system would only calculate rewards based on 32 ETH, leaving the extra 8 ETH idle. After the upgrade, this 8 ETH will automatically roll into the principal, allowing every penny to work for you, achieving automatic compounding of rewards. It also means you can combine multiple validators into one, greatly reducing management burdens.

• Safer Asset Control (EIP-7002): This is a huge leap in security. Previously, the exit command had to be initiated by your 24/7 online "active key" (hot key), which always posed a risk. EIP-7002 implements "separation of powers," allowing you to initiate an exit with a completely offline "withdrawal credential" (cold key). It’s like leaving the daily car keys (hot key) with the driver while the car's ownership certificate (cold key) is locked in your home safe. Even if the keys are lost, you can still sell the car because you hold the ownership.

• Faster Capital Efficiency (EIP-6110): Remember the earlier mentioned "queue game"? The Pectra upgrade also optimizes the joining process. EIP-6110 reduces the activation delay for new validators from about 12 hours to approximately 13 minutes. This means your funds can start earning for you faster, greatly reducing idle time.

• More Powerful Wallets (EIP-7702): This upgrade allows your regular Ethereum wallet to possess the "superpowers" of a smart contract wallet. You can set up multi-signature for your withdrawal address (for example, requiring both your and your partner's devices to agree before transferring funds) or set up social recovery (in case you lose your private key, trusted friends can help you recover your account). Your wallet upgrades from a simple "purse" to a programmable "smart vault."

DVT - From "Going Solo" to "Team Collaboration"

If Pectra is top-down empowerment, then Distributed Validator Technology (DVT) is a bottom-up revolution.

The core idea of DVT is simple: don’t put all your eggs in one basket. It uses cryptographic techniques to split a validator's private key into multiple "shards," distributed among a "cluster" of multiple computers. When work is needed, a sufficient number of shards (for example, 3 out of 4) must collaborate to complete the signature.

What benefits does this bring?

• Extreme Fault Tolerance: In a 4-node cluster, as long as 3 nodes are online, your validator can operate 100% normally. You can confidently perform software upgrades without worrying about sudden power or internet outages, truly achieving "peace of mind."

• Giving Rise to "Squad Staking": DVT makes a whole new collaborative model possible. You and three friends can each contribute 8 ETH to jointly run a 32 ETH validator. The 24/7 operational pressure can also be shared among team members, providing mutual technical support and completely bidding farewell to the loneliness of "surviving in the wilderness."

Projects like Obol Network and ssv.network are making DVT increasingly popular. It opens up a "trust-minimized collaboration" space between "going it alone" and "fully relying on others," allowing isolated individuals to unite into resilient teams.

Conclusion: Redefining "Independence"

As we discuss this, let’s return to the initial question.

The journey of independent stakers is evolving from a thorny path of lone warriors to a broad road paved with advanced tools and collaborative spirit.

The Pectra upgrade is systematically enhancing the security, capital efficiency, and asset sovereignty of independent stakers from the protocol level. DVT technology, through distributed collaboration, greatly enhances their security and resilience while lowering the participation threshold. Perhaps in the future, the meaning of "independence" for "independent stakers" will no longer imply "isolated and helpless," but rather signify independence in thought and decision-making. They will no longer need to expend valuable time and energy on repetitive, high-pressure operational tasks, but can instead contribute to the network more easily, confidently, and intelligently with the help of powerful tools and collaborative networks. The advancement of technology has not diminished the essence of "independence." On the contrary, it is empowering individuals, making this idealistic persistence more accessible than ever.

And this, perhaps, is the best safeguard for the decentralized spirit of Ethereum.