Why Validator Rewards Aren’t What You Think — and How to Make ETH Staking Actually Pay
Whoa! The numbers on your staking dashboard can be seductive. Seriously? You see a nice APR and think: easy money. My instinct said, hold up — somethin' else is going on under the hood. Initially I thought rewards were just a simple percentage, but then I dove deeper and realized there are at least three moving parts that change your payout every week. Think of validator rewards like a yield on a muni bond that also gets hit by traffic jams and sunny-day bonus pay. Short version: base block rewards (protocol-set) + inclusion/exclusion behavior (attestations and proposer duties) + MEV/top-of-block...