Calculate Your ETH Staking Rewards 🌎

How Consensus Layer Rewards Work

On the consensus layer (the Beacon Chain), validators earn ETH for three duties: proposing blocks, attesting to blocks proposed by others, and participating in sync committees. The total issuance is inversely proportional to the square root of total ETH staked. With roughly 32-34 million ETH currently staked (about 28% of supply), the consensus-only APY is around 3.0%. As more ETH gets staked, this number drifts down — by design, to discourage runaway staking participation.

The formula matters: consensus_APY ≈ 166.3 / sqrt(active_validators). At 1 million active validators (32M ETH), that's ~3.3%. Double the validators and APY drops to ~2.3%. This is why solo validators watch beaconcha.in obsessively — your real yield depends on what everyone else is doing.

Execution Layer Rewards: Priority Tips and MEV

On top of consensus rewards, when your validator is selected to propose a block (~once every 50-70 days for a single validator), you collect the priority fees (tips) and any MEV (Maximal Extractable Value) from that block. About 93% of validators run MEV-Boost, an open-source middleware that connects them to MEV relays (Flashbots, Ultra Sound, BloXroute, Agnostic) and auctions block space to searchers. MEV-Boost typically adds 1-1.5% APY on top of consensus rewards, which is why the all-in solo APY lands around 3.5-4.5%.

Validator Effectiveness Factor

No validator earns the theoretical max. Effectiveness — measured on beaconcha.in — depends on uptime (target ≥99%), correct head/target/source votes, and avoiding inclusion delays. A well-run solo validator hits 98-99% effectiveness; a poorly configured one with downtime can drop to 95% or worse, costing you ~5% of expected APY. Slashing (signing two conflicting attestations or proposing two blocks at the same slot) is rare but expensive: a 1-32 ETH penalty plus forced exit. Slashing rate on mainnet is below 0.04% of validators historically.

Restaking via EigenLayer: Extra Yield, Extra Risk

EigenLayer lets you 're-stake' your already-staked ETH (or LSTs like stETH) to secure additional services called AVS (Actively Validated Services) — things like data availability layers, oracles, and rollup bridges. Operators earn additional 2-4% APY by opting into AVS, paid in ETH or AVS tokens. The catch: each AVS adds slashing conditions. A bug or misconfigured node can wipe out principal on top of base slashing. Smart contract risk is non-trivial — the EigenLayer contracts are audited but young.

US Tax Treatment You Cannot Ignore

The IRS treats staking rewards as ordinary income at fair market value on the date of receipt (per IRS Notice 2014-21 and the 2023 Revenue Ruling 2023-14 confirming this for PoS rewards). Your cost basis for future capital gains equals that FMV at receipt. For LSTs like stETH, this is genuinely painful: every daily rebase or rewards distribution is a taxable event, and you owe income tax in USD even though you only hold ETH. The Jarrett v. United States case (filed 2021, refunded 2022, refiled 2024) argued staking rewards should be taxed only at disposal — not receipt — but the IRS continues to enforce receipt-based taxation as of 2026. Keep meticulous records: every reward, every USD value, every date.

Solo vs Lido vs Coinbase Trade-offs

Solo (32 ETH) gives you full rewards, full sovereignty, and full responsibility — including running execution + consensus clients with proper validator client diversity (Lighthouse, Prysm, Teku, Nimbus, Lodestar) to avoid mass slashing events. Lido is the convenience king: ~30% market share, 10% fee, liquid stETH usable across DeFi, but criticized for centralization. Rocket Pool offers a middle path with permissionless node operators and rETH (15% fee on commission). Coinbase cbETH is the easiest but most expensive (25% fee) and adds custodial risk.

Final Notes

Use this calculator as a planning tool — plug in realistic APY (3-3.5% for liquid staking net of fees, 3.5-4.5% solo, 5-7% with EigenLayer restaking) and a conservative ETH price. Track results on beaconcha.in if solo, or via Lido / Rocket Pool dashboards if pooled. For tax filing, export every rewards event to your CPA — this is not the kind of math you eyeball at year-end.