The Hex Trust Group, an institutional-grade digital asset custodian licensed across global financial hubs, has announced Ether (ETH) staking services have now been relaunched following the Shapella upgrades on the Ethereum blockchain.
Hex Trust has an Ethereum Validator Node and “plays a vital role in securing the Ethereum network by storing data, verifying transactions, and adding new blocks to the blockchain.”
The Ethereum blockchain successfully “completed the ‘Shapella’ upgrade on April 12th, enabling validators to withdraw their staked Ether (ETH) from the Beacon Chain after three years of lockups.”
Hex Trust has subsequently “updated its institutional-grade digital asset custody platform, Hex Safe, to fully support the updated Ethereum blockchain.”
There are many advantages of staking ETH via “the Hex Trust Validator Nodes.”
Staking is described as being highly secured “via Hex Trust’s custody-grade level of protection for validator keys, while air-gapped wallets are created on devices that aren’t connected to the internet.”
Client’s withdrawal wallets “have institutional-grade protection via Hex Safe, ensuring rewards have industry-leading security.”
Additionally, Hex Trust says that it “prioritizes top-level availability and security with dedicated nodes to avoid potential penalties and risks, 24/7 node monitoring to ensure optimal functioning, consistent connectivity to the protocol, and reliable data access for all nodes.”
What was the Shapella upgrade?
The Shanghai upgrade to the Ethereum blockchain is “a set of features that enables users to unstake or withdraw their staked ETH. It was originally scheduled for March 2023, having been confirmed in December 2022.”
Previously, any staked ETH was locked and was “unable to be withdrawn.”
This was the first major upgrade “since the Ethereum blockchain transitioned from a Proof-of-Work (PoW) to a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism.”
Ethereum now has “a Proof-of-Stake execution chain and a consensus chain called the Beacon Chain. Given this, both chains required hard forking.”
The ‘Shanghai’ upgrade refers “to the execution chain hard fork, while ‘Capella’ refers to the consensus chain hard fork.”
Hence the combined name of Shapella.
As explained in the announcement, Hex Trust is “an Ethereum Validator and node operator and provides ETH staking services for its institutional clients.”
