Blockdaemon delivered a 2.61% ETH PRR vs. a 2.60% CESR in September, plus Glamsterdam on Sepolia, EIP-8363 leaving Hegotá, and EIP-7716.
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Performance Report
Validator Performance & Ecosystem Update
Blockdaemon is a leading staking provider for institutions, offering secure, risk-mitigated rewards across more than 50 blockchain networks. Blockdaemon secures over $10 billion in staked assets and delivers 99.9% uptime. This report analyzes current Ethereum ecosystem trends and compares Blockdaemon's validator fleet performance with the network average.
September 2026
Blockdaemon delivered a 2.61% PRR against a 2.60% CESR benchmark in September, outperforming the network average. Both rates eased 2 bps as more ETH continued to be staked.
September Protocol Reward Rate (PRR)
PRR (Protocol Reward Rate) estimates protocol rewards based on historical ETH staking data and does not guarantee future results. Blockdaemon uses the Rated.network API for all competitive benchmarking so comparisons are measured on a consistent third-party basis. Internal validator performance data is used for Blockdaemon reporting. Trend includes prior 2026 months for context.
September 2026
Glamsterdam, Ethereum's next upgrade, went live on the Sepolia test network on October 6. Sepolia blocks can now hold about 200 million gas, roughly 3.3 times mainnet's 60 million. The upgrade gives validators more time to check blocks and lets them check transactions side by side. It also charges more gas to store and read data, so 3.3 times the gas does not mean 3.3 times the transactions. Hoodi, the testnet built for stakers, is next. No mainnet date is set.
What this means for institutions: Glamsterdam is an operations event, not a rewards event. Blockdaemon manages all infrastructure changes on behalf of customers, including client updates and the new validator duties. Hoodi going live will signal that mainnet is close.
Overview: ethereum.org/roadmap/glamsterdam
EIP-8363 would have burned a growing share of staking rewards as more ETH is staked. On October 1, its authors withdrew it from Hegotá, the upgrade after Glamsterdam, after 200+ comments in a few weeks. Many people, including core developers, said upgrade planning is the wrong place to decide how much new ETH is created. The authors agreed and will start a separate process for issuance. It begins with a forum at Devcon in November and aims for a formal proposal by EthCC in April.
What this means for institutions: this proposal will not cut rewards in Hegotá, but the debate continues on its own track. Its open questions, from network security to products built on staking yield, matter directly to institutions. Keep testing reward models against lower issuance.
Status: forkcast.org/eips/8363 · Explainer: blockdaemon.com/blog
EIP-7716, based on an idea from Vitalik Buterin, would raise the penalty for missed votes when many validators fail at once. Today, a validator offline alone pays the same as one offline with 30% of the network. Under the proposal, a lone failure still pays today's small penalty. If 1% of stake drops together, the penalty is about 9 times higher; at 10%, about 78 times, capped at 256 times. The extra charge is biggest in the first hours. It has been proposed for Hegotá.
What this means for institutions: the goal is to stop one bug, cloud outage or operator mistake from taking much of the network down at once. Operators that spread validators across clients, clouds and regions benefit. An isolated outage costs the same as today, and this is not slashing.
Calculator: validatordowntime.obol.org (Obol)
Operational Excellence
OFAC Compliance Overview:
Relays act as a trusted layer between block builders and validators, ensuring fair payload routing, block validity, and data availability. They aggregate bids from multiple builders and submit the most profitable payloads to validators, enabling efficient MEV capture while mitigating manipulation risks.
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