MetaMask Institutional Partners with Figment on Institutional Staking

MetaMask Institutional (MMI) is thrilled to announce its partnership with Figment, a leader in staking infrastructure, and the largest non-custodial ETH staking provider. This partnership will expand MMI’s institutional staking marketplace, which launched in March 2023.

The addition of Figment to MMI’s staking marketplace brings MMI’s offering to five aggregated institutional staking providers, alongside Consensys Staking, and three others. With this decentralized approach, MMI offers institutions the choice among the industry's top tier providers, together with standardized terms and conditions, institutional-grade reporting, and a simplified staking experience. MMI’s institutional staking marketplace brings a unique and enhanced staking experience to all kinds of organizations seeking to engage in Web3.

Before we dive deeper into the Figment-MMI partnership, let’s recap why staking is crucial for Ethereum, and how institutions stake.

Institutions and Staking

Staking was a core component of Ethereum’s move to the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism, away from the energy-intensive Proof-of-Work consensus mechanism, in September last year.

Staking entails depositing 32 ETH to activate another validator, or node, to the network. These validators play a crucial role in achieving consensus by proposing new blocks, and verifying and attesting to the validity of other proposed blocks. As the number of honest validators increases, the cost of attacking the network rises, significantly enhancing Ethereum's economic security.

Ethereum’s upgrade to PoS brought numerous advantages, enhancing settlement finality guarantees, enabling sharding, and significantly reducing ETH issuance and energy usage. From the standpoint of an Ethereum user, this transition also opened up a fresh avenue for earning additional token rewards through staking.

Staking can be an integral part of an institution’s digital asset strategy, especially since the Shanghai/Capella upgrade earlier this year. This upgrade enabled withdrawals of the ETH that had been locked on Ethereum’s consensus layer since December 2020, when staking was first enabled on the Beacon chain.

However, the nuances and complexity of institutional staking can deter companies looking to participate. Choosing the right vendor for institutional staking can be complicated due to the differences in the fees charged, slashing coverage, infrastructure, terms and conditions, and reporting standards. In addition, various staking providers offer different benefits to institutions, ranging from differences in infrastructure (multi-cloud, multi-region, and multi-client) to certifications (SOC2 Type 2 and ISO 27001).

Institutions often want to select their node locations too. This can help them comply with the regulations of the jurisdiction their nodes are in, and ensure the network is decentralized by choosing diverse node locations, among other things.

MMI’s institutional staking marketplace is aimed at streamlining this complex staking experience for institutions and leveling the playing field by bringing together best-in-class partners to provide institutions with a simple one-click staking experience.

MMI Staking Marketplace

MMI’s staking marketplace provides access to top-tier staking providers; offers standardized terms and conditions, institutional-grade reporting; and a simplified staking experience—to facilitate broader institutional web3 participation.

Institutions often require multiple custodial integrations to engage in web3, depending on their regulatory requirements, and security and privacy needs. It also means institutions are bound by the provider their custodian has chosen. However, MetaMask Institutional today is integrated with 12 custody and self-custody platforms globally. This allows institutions seamless and unrivaled access to staking providers.

MMI, the web3 wallet for organizations developed by Consensys, and the first multi-custodial institutional web3 offering on the market, is excited to include Figment in our institutional staking marketplace.

Figment and MMI

Figment is the leading provider of staking infrastructure with over $3B in total assets staked. On Ethereum, Figment is the largest non-custodial staking provider with almost 5% of staked ETH on Figment validators. It provides the most comprehensive staking solution for over 250 institutional clients, including asset managers, exchanges, wallets, foundations, custodians, and large token holders, to earn rewards on their digital assets. These clients rely on Figment’s institutional staking service, including rapid API development, rewards reporting, partner integrations, and slashing protection.

Figment is backed by industry experts, financial institutions, and our global team across twenty-three countries. This all leads to our mission to support the adoption, growth, and long-term success of the web3 ecosystem. To learn more about Figment, please visit figment.io.

You can learn more about the MMI staking marketplace and request access here.