t’s been a bit over a month since we publicly launched Smooth, an MEV Smoothing Pool to reduce variance for Solo Stakers and increase their exposure to high payout blocks. The numbers don’t lie: It is more beneficial to be in Smooth than to be the median solo staker... by a whooping 87%!

Data Breakdown: Solo vs. Smooth Subscriber MEV Rewards

In order to properly compare between Smooth participants and other solo stakers, we’ll need to establish what is the most likely validator as the baseline:

A validator produces 3 blocks per year. We get to this number by dividing the number of slots that need to be proposed in a year by the amount of validators that exist. A year has 31,536,000 seconds, divided in 12 seconds slots this gives you 2,628,000 slots. As of now, we have 896,308 validators, so each validator should propose 2.93 blocks.

Now we must take the median amount of rewards that each block will bring - that is, the amount where 50% of the blocks have MORE MEV and 50% have LESS MEV. That is, a block that is not underperforming nor exceptionally profitable. We take this median because MEV rewards have an extremely asymmetric distribution, where a few "lottery blocks" get the majority of MEV rewards (up to 690+ ETH in a single block!), the expected validator rewards (in a finite amount of time, like a year) are best defined by the median, not the average. According to Flashbots, this block reward is of 0.051 ETH. 

So, 0.051 ETH * 2.93 slots = 0.14943 ETH on Execution rewards per year for the most likely validator!

Now let’s take Smooth and look at the data of what’s been happening:

In Smooth, the average reward currently is 0.1030 (we’ll get to why it’s so high in a second) times 2.93 = 0.30179 ETH, minus 7% for Smooth = 0.2806647, a 87% more rewards!

That is HUGE! There are several reasons for this increase:

1. Lately there have been quite high fees. This is one of the great benefits of being in the pool: you don’t have to have YOUR validator proposing a block during high fee periods… as long as someone in the pool does it for you, you can get a piece of the action!
   
   
   
   2. Secondly, this also counts donations to the pool. I like to count donations too as they are an integral part of the design of the pool. Donations to Solo Stakers that participate in the pool are literally public goods funding, since Solo Stakers contribute disproportionately high to the decentralization of the network versus institutional and professional operators that concentrate high amounts of validators in one company, data center, withdrawal address, etc.

   That said, it’s a fair request to want to compare what happens with the donations when subtracting the donations to the pool, so here it is:

   Without donations, the average block is 0.07389 ETH, which times 2.93 = 0.2164977, minus Smooth’s fee: 0.201342861 ETH per year… still a 34.74% higher!

   So the reality is that with the current numbers, Smooth participants are expected to gain 87% more than playing solo, after subtracting Smooth’s fee. Even if there were no more donations (which won’t happen), Smooth participants would be expected to gain 34.74% more rewards! All smooth block rewards are public and you can check for yourself this information at https://smooth.dappnode.io/. This increase in rewards will improve even more as Smooth gains more subscribers.
   
   

   What is Smooth and how does it work?

   Let’s do a quick reminder of the three main benefits of Smooth:

   • Stop Depending on Luck: It depends on luck how many blocks you will propose. You are expected to propose 2.93 per year, but you could be unlucky and propose less, or be lucky and propose more. Smooth changes the game and allows you to have exposure to an immense amount of blocks, and not just whatever the blockchain randomness assigns to you. 
   
   
   • Don't Miss High Fee Seasons: With only three block proposals per year for solo stakers, the chances of catching high fee seasons are slim. In Smooth, block proposals are constant, guaranteeing that participants don't miss out on lucrative opportunities, such as NFT sales or peak network activity. We’ve already seen that in play in the past month in Smooth. 
     
     
   • Hitting MEV Lottery Blocks: Ahh, the big payout! MEV rewards are distributed unevenly, and solo stakers have a low chance of hitting high-reward blocks. In Smooth, the combined chances of hitting a lottery block are significantly higher, with backtesting simulations showing up to 60% higher rewards for Smooth Pool participants compared to solo stakers.

Conclusion: Join Smooth, Unlock 87% More Rewards 

If you're a solo staker on Ethereum, it's time to level up your staking game. Join Smooth, capitalize on the MEV Smoothing Pool's innovative approach, and improve by 87% your ethereum staking rewards. If moreover you are in a position to want to incentivize Solo Stakers, don't miss out on the opportunity to contribute to public goods funding and support network decentralization and donate to make this numbers even more impressive!

TLDR

• Solo staker validator yearly MEV rewards: 0.14943 ETH
• Smooth subscriber validator yearly MEV rewards: 0.2806647 (+87%)

Join Smooth now: https://2ly.link/1viui