Grayscale's Ethereum Staking ETF Reached $33.5 Million in Its First Year

Grayscale's mini Ether staking ETF has generated over $33.5 million in net staking income over the course of a year. Currently, 80.39% of the fund's assets are staked. The gross staking reward is 2.66%, while the net–2.49%. The fund holds about 929,000 ETH and approximately $2.5 billion in assets under management, demonstrating the broad scale of the model. Investors comparing products with spot Ether can use staking rewards as an additional way to assess returns alongside fees and price dynamics. However, these rewards represent staking income, not the fund's overall profit.

As the growth of Ether staking now partly depends on whether the network can handle increasing load, the Glamsterdam upgrade entered the public testing phase on Sepolia on October 6, 2026. Sepolia will test how Ethereum creates and verifies blocks, allowing other blockchain segments to add and verify transaction data more quickly. Successful testing could support a future gas limit cap above 200 million compared to approximately 60 million, indicating an increase of more than 233%.

However, a higher limit with insufficient validation performance may not provide significant benefits. Therefore, developers need to assess processing time, client performance, and reliable finalization before further advancement. The next testing phase will be Hoodi, with its activation date yet to be determined in the published schedule, while the main network block activation remains open. Meanwhile, staking ETFs demonstrate one way to earn protocol rewards through investment products. The Glamsterdam testing raises another question: can Ethereum support greater activity without overloading the validators that ensure network security.