⬆️ Staking

❓How long does it take for a validator to become active?

As of October 2024, it takes a day or two, from the moment you sign the staking transaction to the moment your validator earns its first rewards. This activation estimate can vary depending on how many validators are activating at any given time.

Scroll down for more on rewards.

❓Can I see a list of my validators?

Your validators are listed on the Rewards tab, with their staked balance, all time rewards and status. Clicking on their address will take you to the Beacon Chain block explorer.

💰 Rewards

A 1 minute primer on ETH rewards

An ETH validator performs two main duties: attestations and block proposals.

Attestations are like votes on the state of the chain and help the network arrive at consensus. Rewards for those are small (~ 0.002 ETH/day) and frequent (every few minutes). They are only distributed on the Consensus Layer.
Block proposals are more rare (a validator proposes a block every four to six months on average) but rewards are usually higher. Block proposal rewards are distributed on both the Consensus Layer (the block proposer rewards) and on the Execution Layer (the tips and MEV).

Based on the above, we can distinguish rewards based on the layer they are earned on. This is important because they will be received by your wallet at different times.

Consensus Layer (CL) rewards. They do not go immediately in your wallet. As your validator earns them. they accrue on its balance and, every ~ 10 days, the Ethereum protocol automatically sends them to your wallet as a "sweep".
Execution Layer (EL) Rewards. They go immediately to your wallet after being earned. They go through a smart contract where they are split so that Figment can take its fee. More below.

❓How often are rewards paid?

Your validators mostly earn CL rewards, every few minutes. Those rewards accrue on your validator's balance until they are automatically sent to your wallet. So although you are earning rewards every few minutes, you only receive them in your wallet by chunk every ~ 10 days or so.

❓Do I need to claim rewards?

No! Unlike other staking solutions, Figment doesn't pool users rewards in a unique smart contract. You don't need to claim them (and spend gas from your pocket).

❓I don't see the rewards in my wallet

This will usually happen in the first 7 to 10 days of staking. Why? Rewards are earned very frequently but only arrive on your wallet every ~ 10 days.

❓Can I download a history of my rewards?

Yes. The rewards chart has a way to download the rewards you see on the chart. Pick the duration you want (39 days, one year, etc) and download them in CSVor in JSON.

You can get more granularity and date range using our API. Get in touch with us if you want to be set up with API access.

⬇️ Unstaking

❓How soon can I unstake my ETH?

The Ethereum protocol only allows you to exit a validator once 256 epochs (~ 27 hours) have passed since it became active.

❓How long does it take to unstake my ETH?

There are two parts in unstaking:

Exit. Your validator enters the exit queue but is still earning rewards. This can last for a few hours to a few days.
Withdrawal. Your validator has exited and is not earning rewards anymore. It's waiting for the protocol to withdraw its balance back to your wallet. This process can take up anytime from a few hours to 10 days (because the protocol handles validators in sequence and only handles 32 withdrawals per epoch).

After you unstake, we provide clear status and estimates in the Activity table:

💰 Fee

❓How Figment take a fee on rewards?

Figment does not take any cut from CL rewards. Doing so would mean assigning your validator's withdrawal credentials to a smart contract, which means we would have control of your funds. Any solution that does that has control of your funds in practice. With Figment, your validator's withdrawal credentials are always assigned to your wallet.

Figment only take a cut from the EL rewards. We deploy a smart contract (unique for your wallet) and we set the validator's fee recipient (where EL rewards go) to this contract. When EL rewards are earned, they go through this contract that splits them between Figment and you.

Since historically EL rewards account for around 22% of all rewards, Figment takes 36% of those EL rewards, in order to achieve an 8% fee on all rewards (36% of 22% is 8%!).

❓Why does Figment's fee look lower/higher than 8%?

Because of the variability of EL rewards, at any point in time the effective fee Figment takes could be different than 8%:

if you just started staking a few weeks ago and your validators haven't proposed a block yet, you will have kept 100% of rewards and Figment's fee would be 0%
if you get lucky and quickly get an EL reward on which Figment takes a cut, our effective fee will be higher than 8%. But as time goes by and you keep getting CL rewards (on which Figment doesn't take a fee) the effective fee we take will go back down to 8%

➕ Misc

❓Can I view my Ledger Live stakes in the Figment app?

Yes! Once you have created a Figment app account, you can view your Ledger Live stakes there. You will just need to import

❓Can I restake on EigenLayer?

It is not currently possible to restake on EigenLayer on Ledger Live. You can use the Figment app to do that.