Blox is first to market with non-custodial Eth2 staking
The race is over! Blox is officially first to market with a non-custodial Eth2 staking application. If you didn’t receive the download invitation, you can download Blox Beta here. Beta will remain available for a number of months until Eth2 mainnet launch towards the end of this year.
Blox is a Desktop staking application that will first operate on the Medalla Testnet. All that is needed to participate in the testnet using Blox Beta is a cloud account, crypto wallet and some GӧETH (visit our Discord to get yours). Once the mainnet goes live, we will provide an update that will facilitate a smooth transition to real ETH staking on Eth2.
Why Is it better to get an Early start on Eth2 Staking?
Staking with Beta is an important time for our team to gain insights from users testing out and exploring the app. Refining this process based on user feedback is the best way to ensure a smooth transition to mainnet when real ETH staking becomes available. It is also an opportunity to help out Ethereum in general, the more participants that help secure Medalla, the more opportunities there will be to test out the network and resolve potential issues before the mainnet goes live.
Furthermore, those who stake early will experience greater benefits. Therefore, we suggest setting up your stake as soon as you can so that when you eventually make the transition, the process will be as smooth as possible.
The Time Has Come to Test Out Blox Beta!
We are excited to share our work with the world and get some necessary feedback from our community. We are all here because of the promise of Ethereum and what it will become. We encourage you to download Beta and give us your brutal, honest feedback. Join the conversation on Discord to let us know what you think!
Safe Staking,
Team Blox
Blox Staking product updates
The road aheadOnce the mainnet is released (hopefully by November of this year!), Beta will support staking on both the Medalla testnet and the Eth2 mainnet. In the days leading up to mainnet genesis, we will push an update with an additional feature that will allow a user to create a mainnet validator.
We also have a number of other features planned for the near future:
- Account Restore – in the event of a forgotten password or if a user wishes to use Blox on a different device.
- Key Export
- Activation Time Tracker – after setup, a validator is placed in a queue for a number of hours before it can start validating. To make your waiting time less painful, we will add a countdown to keep you informed 😉
- And much much more
Want to learn more about Blox? Read on.
Blox Fundamentals
Blox was created with the core belief that a user should never have to give up his or her private keys in order to stake. Joining Eth2 as a validator isn’t an easy task and services will certainly make themselves available to alleviate this process. The only problem? Most, if not all staking services are Custodial: meaning, they retain ownership over user private keys.
As security conscious ourselves, we knew that this wouldn’t fly for other people who share our mindset. We thought hard to develop a staking solution that is easy to use, while entirely Non-Custodial. While we do hope to see teams develop other non-custodial Eth2 staking solutions in the future, as this facilitates true decentralization; currently, there are no other services that can boast this key offering.
*The more centralized the service (custodial), the greater the staking risks. Find out why here.
How Does Our Non-Custodial Configuration Work?
- A self-contained Desktop App, Blox Live provides a streamlined key generation and validator management experience.
- A remote signer, KeyVault is held on a user’s cloud server. KeyVault stores user validator keys and executes signing duties. It also features built-in slashing protection.
- A cluster of validators, Eth2 and Eth1 nodes, Blox Infra manages a stable connection to the blockchain and schedules user signing duties for optimal response time.
This configuration allows validators to optimize staking performance, minimize security risks and keep complete control over their assets. Visit our tech page for a deeper explanation of how the platform’s three main components operate.
