Introducing Obol Contributions: Stake, Contribute, Earn

Today marks the launch of the Obol Contributions Program, an opportunity for EVERY staker to get recognition for scaling and decentralising Ethereum by staking on Obol distributed validators (DVs). Stakers can participate by staking on Obol DVs via a Contributions launch partner such as Stakely, Mellow’s vault for Lido, Chorus One’s vault on Stakewise, or by deploying their own DV on the DV Launchpad. 

Stake deployed on Obol DVs contributes 1% of staking rewards into the Obol Collective’s retroactive funding mechanism (RAF), which is focused on scaling Ethereum infrastructure. Those Contributions are tracked and earn stakers access to future community governance and ownership of the Obol Collective. Get started at obol.org/contributions, or read more in our docs.

Sustainable Funding to Scale Ethereum

We are all part of the Ethereum ecosystem because we believe in Ethereum’s potential to become the global settlement layer of the digital economy. Ethereum must scale to over a billion users to achieve that vision, but to achieve that scale we must strengthen the security, resilience, and decentralisation of the validator network. If Ethereum is to achieve its mission, the network and its validators can never falter. 

This is why, over the last 3 years, over 50 entities and thousands of individuals have collaborated to fund, research, develop, and deploy distributed validators (DVs) - the most impactful technology strengthening Ethereum’s validator network. To formalise, scale, and decentralise the adoption of DVs across the Ethereum ecosystem, the Obol Collective was formed. For the first time, the Obol Contributions Program allows any staker to meaningfully take part in the Obol Collective’s mission — to scale and decentralise Ethereum.

Why Contributions? 

All stake deployed on Obol DVs contributes 1% of daily staking rewards to the Obol Collective’s retroactive funding program (RAF), starting a flywheel that accelerates an ecosystem of teams and projects strengthening Ethereum’s consensus layer, and driving further value and monetary flows to DVs. 

With this regenerative funding mechanism in place, it’s time to get EVERY individual in the Ethereum ecosystem involved in our collective mission of strengthening and scaling Ethereum. To increase adoption of DVs and grow participation in the Obol Collective, we will begin tracking stake on distributed validators and thus Contributions to the Obol RAF, with these contributions serving as the basis for future community governance and ownership of the Obol Collective.

Stake on DVs, start contributing

Participating in the Obol Contributions Program is as easy as staking on one of the partner protocols listed below, or by spinning up your own DV using the DV Launchpad. Get started at obol.org/contributions, or check out our docs for more details. 

• Mellow restaking vault for Lido SimpleDVT: This Obol vault directs ETH toward Lido’s SimpleDVT module, while also supporting restaking applications, as curated by Steakhouse Financial. No minimum stake.
• Chorus One Stakewise vault: Built on Stakewise’s vault technology, the Chorus One DV Vault gives users secure staking yields and MEV rewards, and enables the minting of the osETH liquid staking token. 1 ETH minimum stake.  
• Stakely Obol Portal: Accepts deposits of 32 ETH allowing anyone to quickly and easily deploy their own dedicated Obol DV cluster, with enterprise-grade staking infrastructure and no pooling of assets. 

Keep an eye out as the Contributions Program expands to new partners like EtherFi and other staking products!

For more detailed information about the contributions program, please visit obol.org/contributions or the contributions page on our docs to read FAQs and details about the calculation of contributions.