Ethereum Validator Performance Report

In an effort to provide transparency into our staking performance and validator operations, we are excited to share our first Ethereum validator performance report. This initial report covers performance data for the most recent complete month–February 2025. Note that while some Coinbase staking customers choose to delegate to our partner staking providers, unless otherwise stated, the data provided in this report applies only to Coinbase validators.

At a Glance: 

• Number of Coinbase validators: 120k

• Staked to Coinbase validators: 3.84M ETH → 11.42% of total staked ETH (as of 3/4/25)

• Staked through partners: 581.5k ETH (as of 3/4/25)

• 0 slashing or double signing events (since inception)   

• Uptime: 99.75%

• Participation rate: 99.75%

• Consensus client diversity: 2 clients 

• Execution client diversity: 2 clients 

• Relay diversity: 6 relays 

• Validator distribution: 5 countries and 2 cloud providers 

Uptime

Validator uptime indicates the percentage of time validators are online and operational. While 99%+ uptime is a typical target, optimizing for uptimes of 99.9% can be suboptimal. Targeting 99.9% requires security tradeoffs that can increase the risk of double signing, resulting in slashing penalties. At Coinbase, high uptimes are important but we always prioritize the security of our customers’ assets over liveness.  

In February 2025, Coinbase validators had an average uptime of 99.75%, significantly outperforming our 99% uptime target without compromising on our security standards. This was largely due to an architecture upgrade we made last year, which enables us to keep our validators running while we perform beacon node maintenance. 

While it is possible to achieve even greater uptimes, Coinbase prioritizes minimizing slashing risk over capturing possible tenths of a percent more uptime. This strategy pays off, as Coinbase validators (across all supported networks, not just Ethereum) have a perfect track record of never double signing or being slashed.

Participation Rate

Participation rate indicates how well validators perform their consensus duties. This metric is measured by the percentage of assigned attestations that a validator successfully signs, submits, and gets included in a block. 

The chart below shows Coinbase’s participation rate for the month of February, and breaks down our participation for other key validator duties.

• Proposing blocks: Signing and submitting blocks produced by our MEV relays.

• Participating in sync committees: Producing additional signatures for blocks to enable light clients to sync quickly and trustlessly.

Network figures are from an internal dashboard tool that pulls data from the blockchain 

Validator Distribution

To help maintain a truly distributed and decentralized Ethereum blockchain, we distribute our validators across several regions, each with multiple availability zones. This also helps compartmentalize potential outages and accommodates customers who require validators to be operated in specific regions for regulatory purposes. 

Our validators operate in: 

• Japan

• Singapore

• Ireland

• Germany

• Hong Kong

Additionally, we distribute our validators between 2 cloud providers–AWS and GCP. This gives our customers additional flexibility, helps further compartmentalize potential outages, and mitigates the risk of a technical issue impacting our ability to run workloads on a given cloud provider. This distribution strategy also helps mitigate risk in the event of a cloud provider cracking down on hosting blockchain validators. 

Disaster Recovery

If a prolonged issue with a cloud provider or given region were to occur, our validator orchestration system enables us to quickly and safely move our validators between data centers with minimal downtime. While this system has yet to be required in response to an outage, it has a proven track record via routine validator migrations at the request of customers and for scheduled maintenance. 

Client Diversity

Client diversity is crucial for protecting our customers’ assets and strengthening the Ethereum network’s resilience. Diversification of both execution and consensus clients prevents single points of failure, enhances network decentralization, mitigates attack risks, and helps us avoid slashing and provide stable rewards.

Our ETH validators support: 

• Consensus clients: Lighthouse, Prysm 

• Execution clients: Geth, Nethermind

• Looking forward: We are currently evaluating the production readiness of two more implementations and plan to continue expanding our client diversity. 

Network figures are taken from Sigma Prime's Blockprint and may not be 100% accurate

Network figures are taken from clientdiversity.org and may not be 100% accurate

To prevent any one client from having a supermajority, overall network client distribution is an important factor when determining our own distribution mix. Diversification at the network level and the overall health of the network is always a priority for us. That’s why we periodically check network distribution and factor that into any changes we make to our mix, as well as allocation decisions when adding new clients. 

Relay Diversity 

Relay diversification reduces centralization risk and provides broader access to diverse block pools. This enables validators to optimize block selection, capture value that may otherwise have been missed, and benefit from aggregated MEV opportunities–potentially leading to improved staking rewards. Diversification also provides redundancy, minimizing downtime and avoiding single points of failure.

Our validators are connected to 6 unique MEV relays:  

• Flashbots MEV-Boost Relay 

• bloXroute Max Profit Relay

• ultra sound relay (non-censoring) 

• Agnostic Relay (non-censoring) 

• Aestus MEV-Boost Relay (non-censoring) 

• Titan Relay (non-censoring)

Continue the Conversation   

Going forward, we plan to regularly publish our Ethereum validator performance metrics. We will also be sharing validator reports for other major networks (such as Solana) soon. 

Have feedback or staking questions? Continue the conversation by booking a chat with us here!