How does Blockdaemon guarantee zero slashing?

Blockdaemon does not guarantee zero slashing, but provides a guarantee to compensate for any slashing penalties incurred as a result of Blockdaemon’s fault.  We can offer this because our node infrastructure is configured with full node redundancy, 24/7 monitoring w/ human coverage, and only manual failover greatly reducing the risk of double-sign violations and slashing.  Additionally, because we receive a portion of our fee as a share of the validator rewards which you would hold custody of, it serves as a security deposit in case of any such events.  At this time, Blockdaemon has never been slashed so we’re confident in our approach.

How many nodes are the minimum to get started staking with Blockdaemon on ETH2?

We don’t have a set minimum node requirement to get started, but depending on how many you’d like, it helps us work out a configuration and pricing.  That said, we’ve been doing small sets of nodes for customers to get familiar with the workflow (2-4 nodes).

How fast can we set things up to begin staking?

Blockdaemon is running ETH2 nodes for itself and customers today and can rapidly deploy nodes (in the thousands).  Time for onboarding and first deployment and staking can be within 48-72 hours depending on your wallet setup and availability to onboard.

How does ETH2 Integration work?

So the first prerequisite is to have created an ETH2 compatible withdrawal private key (BLS12-381) and informed us of the corresponding public key for it. We use this public key to create deposit data for activating our validators. Once created, we hand customers back the 4 pieces of data needed per validator, and they will then send Ether to a smart contract with this data included in the transaction, which tells ETH2 which validator to activate.

Do you need to send your ETH to a smart contract and how do you get your staking reward?

Yes you need to send your ETH to a smart contract. The staking reward is inaccessible until the Eth1 and Eth2 chains have been merged in ~1 year, and when we have triggered the exit for a validator, our client cannot take the rewards out of a validator without our action first.

What contract calls does one need to make (and to what contract)?

One contract call per validator to activate needs to be made to the Deposit Contract’s deposit() method.

How many blocks after funds have been sent to the Beacon Chain will a validator be activated?

After 2048 blocks, the validators will be recognised as funded and will begin activation on the ETH2 Beacon chain. 

Is it possible to integrate with Ledger for ETH2?

Right now developers can interact with the ledger SDK to create withdrawal keys on the device if they build this integration themselves (nothing in the ledger live apps yet). Ledger have also announced that a Nano X can also verify that a proposed deposit data is valid and withdraws to the address within the ledger. I hope in future our front end application can handle the full flow end to end.