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Ether.fi (ETHFI) is an Ethereum-based decentralized staking protocol that empowers users to stake their ETH without entrusting it to a third party. By staking with Ether.fi, …

Etherfi

What makes ether.fi different

There are two main differentiators for ether.fi:

1. Stakers generate and hold their own staked ETH keys.

2. An NFT is minted for every validator that is launched via ether.fi.

With most other delegated staking protocols the starting point is that the staker deposits their ETH and is matched with a node operator, who generates and holds the staking credentials. Although this approach can be implemented such that the protocol is non-custodial, in practice in most cases it creates a mechanism that is custodial or semi-custodial. This can expose the staker to significant and opaque counterparty risk.

With ether.fi the staker controls their keys and retains custody of their ETH while delegating staking to a node operator. This significantly reduces their risk surface area.

The ether.fi mechanism mints an NFT for every validator that is launched via the protocol. The Liquid Staking Derivative token eETH is minted from a liquidity pool that contains these NFTs.

These NFTs control the 32 ETH staked and store metadata related to the validator — the client it runs, the geography it is in, the node operator, and any node services it is running. These NFTs can be used to create a programmable layer on top of staking infrastructure (made more powerful with integration with EigenLayer eventually.)

High-level operational summary

This section contains a high-level summary of ether.fi mechanisms. For a detailed description, please see the ether.fi whitepaper technical section.

There are several users and stakeholders on ether.fi:

• Stakers who are also bond-holders

• Stakers who only hold eETH, the ether.fi LSD (Liquid Staking Derivative)

• Node operators

• Node services users

There are 3 phases on the ether.fi roadmap:

1. Delegated staking

2. Liquidity pool

3. Node services

In each phase, the roles above play evolving roles described briefly below.