A Few Reasons Why Ethereum’s Staking Rate Is Vital for the Future

This shift, which made it so validators are rewarded with both protocol emissions and priority transaction fees, also unlocked something perhaps less obvious but absolutely groundbreaking for Ethereum: the introduction of a native interest rate. Staking ether (ETH), the ecosystem’s native token, now pays an interest rate. This forms a sort of bedrock layer – similar to the role interest rates play in traditional finance – that could power a new, global staking economy. For this to work, though, there must be a reference rate, so investors know what the benchmark is at any given time – a reliable number derived by observing the mean, annualized returns across a comprehensive validator population.