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Leading options · 6 ranked of 7 assessed

Staking

Compared by slashing cover, lock-ups, price and custody.

Ranked here: validator operators that sell native or delegated staking to institutions as an operator contract. Not ranked here: retail exchange staking and liquid staking, which the site already covers in its exchange and liquid staking categories.

#1 of 6published ranking
Kiln
79ChainChoice Score
Why it leads
Kiln scores higher than everything else in this ranking on its lock-up disclosure and its voting from custody.
Show the arithmetic
Best in this ranking on lock-up disclosure and voting from custody
Cost
Not priced · Only 1 of 6 publish a comparable price
Reviewed Next review by Published Methodology v2026.11.1
How this page is reviewed

Reviewed means every product ranked on this page was read against its sources on or after that date; every ranked category is re-read at least every 45 days. Models research, extract and parse. A deterministic engine ranks. Every quote passes an adversarial refute pass.

Accountable for this review: Mathias Siemonsmeier, Founder.

How we review · Review calendar · Corrections log · How we make money

No provider can pay for a position in this table. The code that computes this order cannot read which links carry a referral code, and every build proves it. Every score below rebuilds from the published criteria.Ranking v2026.11.1 · 4 criteria · 6 products · same inputs, same order

How we review · 6 ranked of 7 assessed · 4 criteria · 0 sponsor weight

How we review
6ranked
7assessed
4criteria
0sponsor weight
Recommendation first, comparison only if needed.
Reviewed and rechecked on the current cycle.
Commercial relationships disclosed before clickout.
Personal comparison

Staking ranked comparison

Only 1 of 6 providers publish a comparable price; ranking still uses verified product evidence.

RankProviderBest fitScore
1
KilnThe white-label validator operator runn...Top ranked
Unbonding disclosure — 8/10Trade-off: Read all three parts of the September 2025 breach disclosure before you sign, and the...
79score
Check availability for your country

Kiln · kiln.fi. Provider links appear once we know which country you are browsing from: ChainChoice links to providers only where it serves in full.

Commission: This provider pays ChainChoice nothing for this link. Disclosure

Crypto products are high risk. Check the provider is authorised where you live before you deposit.

2
LuganodesInstitutional non-custodial validator o...
Slashing indemnity — 9/10Trade-off: Read the Terms of Service before you read anything else, because it contradicts three...
76score
Check availability for your country

Luganodes · luganodes.com. Provider links appear once we know which country you are browsing from: ChainChoice links to providers only where it serves in full.

Commission: This provider pays ChainChoice nothing for this link. Disclosure

Crypto products are high risk. Check the provider is authorised where you live before you deposit.

3
FigmentInstitutional non-custodial validator o...
Unbonding disclosure — 6/10Trade-off: The number you would actually pay is not on this site, and the one number that is on...
72score
Check availability for your country

Figment · figment.io. Provider links appear once we know which country you are browsing from: ChainChoice links to providers only where it serves in full.

Commission: This provider pays ChainChoice nothing for this link. Disclosure

Crypto products are high risk. Check the provider is authorised where you live before you deposit.

4
EverstakeCayman-domiciled non-custodial validato...
Commission transparency — 8/10Trade-off: Read the Terms of Use before you read the Ethereum page. Everstake names no insurer,...
69score
Check availability for your country

Everstake · everstake.com. Provider links appear once we know which country you are browsing from: ChainChoice links to providers only where it serves in full.

Commission: This provider pays ChainChoice nothing for this link. Disclosure

Crypto products are high risk. Check the provider is authorised where you live before you deposit.

5
TwinstakeCayman-registered, Nethermind- and Webn...
Unbonding disclosure — 6/10Trade-off: Two of the three numbers an allocator underwrites are not public, so the term sheet h...
61score
Check availability for your country

Twinstake · twinstake.com. Provider links appear once we know which country you are browsing from: ChainChoice links to providers only where it serves in full.

Commission: This provider pays ChainChoice nothing for this link. Disclosure

Crypto products are high risk. Check the provider is authorised where you live before you deposit.

6
BlockdaemonBank-facing non-custodial validator ope...
Unbonding disclosure — 5/10Trade-off: Read the guarantee's scope before you read its size, and note that Blockdaemon's own...
60score
Check availability for your country

Blockdaemon · blockdaemon.com. Provider links appear once we know which country you are browsing from: ChainChoice links to providers only where it serves in full.

Commission: This provider pays ChainChoice nothing for this link. Disclosure

Crypto products are high risk. Check the provider is authorised where you live before you deposit.

Ranking blindCommercial terms excludedDated primary sources

Ranked on 4 published criteria weighted 34/22/24/20, which set goal alignment — 30 of the 86 points. The rest: regional access 20 (constant here), evidence depth 18 (constant here), ease of use 10 (constant here), institutional trust 8 (constant here). Profile match is shown in breakdowns but carries no weight.

How you can lose money here, and what the ranking scores
  • Control failure: a key or vote changes the rules, freezes or mints.
    Scored by Do you keep custody and still get to vote — and who presses the button? · 20% (Kiln 7/10, Luganodes 6/10, Figment 5/10)
  • Insolvency failure: the firm or issuer that owes you cannot pay.
    Scored by If a validator you delegated to gets slashed, who actually writes the cheque? · 34% (Kiln 6/10, Luganodes 9/10, Figment 5/10)
  • Exit failure: you cannot get out at par, on time, or with what is yours.
    Scored by How long are the assets locked per network, and did they tell you before you signed? · 22% (Kiln 8/10, Luganodes 3/10, Figment 6/10)
Not assessed by this ranking: Liveness failure, Custody failure, Regulatory failure, Execution failure, Information failure. A high place says nothing about these; the Methodology tab says what each means.
Also scored, as cost, quality or a summary of several families: Can you find the rate you would actually pay without booking a sales call? (24%).
Audit
Infrastructure
Methodology
2026.11.1
published 10 November 2026
Providers tracked
860+
across 121 categories
Last verified
10 November 2026
newest dated pricing or sentiment read
Named on the roster
2 people
managing directors · 6 automated processes
Decision guide

What matters most before choosing in this category

Weighted on who writes the cheque if a validator you delegated to is slashed (34), whether you can find the rate you would pay without booking a sales call (24), how long the assets are locked per network and whether that was disclosed before you signed (22), and whether you keep custody and still get to vote (20). The heaviest is slashing indemnity: a named instrument that pays by default, read from the operator's own pages.

If a validator you delegated to is slashed, who makes you whole — and where is that written?
Can you get a rate for your networks without booking a call?
Under your custodian, who actually presses the button on a governance vote?
Leads on written indemnity

The #1 overall and the scoring weights

KilnData checked Nov 2026
The white-label validator operator running under other firms' staking buttons, with 15 named custody-platform integration guides and a per-network lock-up figure published across 26 protocol docs pages (28 September 2026 count) — but a slashing base layer whose size it has never quantified, a commission printed for only two of those 26 networks, and a governance posture stated for two niche products while the Cosmos-family chains where delegated stake actually votes are left silent.

The white-label validator operator running under other firms' staking buttons, with 15 named custody-platform integration guides and a per-network lock-up figure published across 26 protocol docs pages (28 September 2026 count) — but a slashing base layer whose size it has never quantified, a commission printed for only two of those 26 networks, and a governance posture stated for two niche products while the Cosmos-family chains where delegated stake actually votes are left silent. Strongest on “How long are the assets locked per network, and did they tell you before you signed?” (8/10): Kiln's protocol docs state a lock-up or exit rule for each of 26 networks; the Ethereum page says the duration depends on the network's exit queue and points to a live tracker on beaconcha.in, but no page prints a dated review or a live figure of Kiln's own. Weakest on “If a validator you delegated to gets slashed, who actually writes the cheque?” (6/10): Kiln's own post says it shares a base level of slashing coverage with all customers and that customers can buy additional cover from Chainproof, reinsured by Munich Re; the size of the base layer is never stated. Published price: Kiln validator docs page "Solana (SOL)" (https://docs.kiln.fi/v1/kiln-products/validators/protocols/solana-sol, fetched 10 November 2026), Mainnet table with columns Name | Commission | MEV commission | Address: Kiln1 — "5%" commission, "100% (offchain rebates &…

Best forUnbonding disclosure — 8/10
Main tradeoffRead all three parts of the September 2025 breach disclosure before you sign, and then ask for the base slashing coverage limit in writing. Kiln itself names the victim. (1) https://www.kiln.fi/post/sol-incident-swissborg---announcement, 8 September 2025: "SwissBorg and Kiln are investigating an incident that may have involved unauthorized access to a wallet used for staking operations... The incident resulted in Solana funds being improperly removed from the wallet used for staking operations." (2) https://www.kiln.fi/kiln-responds-tot-infrastructure-issue-with-validator-exit-funds-remain-protected, "PARIS, FRANCE — September 9, 2025": "Kiln today began the orderly exit of all of its Ethereum (ETH) validators", and "The exit process is expected to take between 10 and 30 days depending on the validator" — an operator-side security event that put every ETH client's principal into a multi-week forced exit, which no unbonding table warns you about. (3) The post-mortem at https://www.kiln.fi/post/re-enablement-of-kiln-services-and-security-incident-information, 7 October 2025: a threat actor compromised "a GitHub access token belonging to a Kiln infrastructure engineer", harvested cloud credentials via CI workflows, and "modified the Kiln Connect API backend controller to return a malicious transaction, which one Kiln enterprise customer signed in their custody solution, causing a loss of funds." The malicious transaction "changed the withdrawal authority of the Solana stakes, only if the existing withdrawal authority of the stake account provided in the POST call held stake balances above 150k SOL" — targeted at the largest clients, and the customer's own quorum approved it inside their custody instance. NOTE THE DIVERGENT ATTRIBUTION, which is the single most useful thing here: Kiln places the mitigation duty on the client — "Kiln has consistently recommended that customers decode transactions to verify their integrity before signing", and "Signing and broadcasting a transaction without decoding may result in a loss of authority over stake accounts, as occurred in this case" — while SwissBorg's own primary statement (https://swissborg.com/blog/swissborg-security-update-kiln-breach) puts it on Kiln: "the tampering of the transaction happened within Kiln's infrastructure", and states "no breach occurred within SwissBorg's infrastructure", quantifying the loss at "over 192,000 SOL". The lesson for this category is precise: non-custody protected the keys but not the client, because the attack came through the transaction the operator constructed, and it was not a slashing event — so the Chainproof base layer, whose size Kiln has never published, would not obviously have answered it. Ask for the base coverage limit, what perils it covers beyond slashing, and whether the operator or the client bears an API-origin malicious-transaction loss. Get it in the contract; Kiln's own institutional docs tell you to, saying "For more details and Kiln's coverage please read our T&Cs or the Order Form you have signed with Kiln."
Verify before signupKiln validator docs page "Solana (SOL)" (https://docs.kiln.fi/v1/kiln-products/validators/protocols/solana-sol, fetched 10 November 2026), Mainnet table with columns Name | Commission | MEV commission | Address: Kiln1 — "5%" commission, "100% (offchain rebates & compounding)" MEV commission, vote account DdCNGDpP7qMgoAy6paFzhhak2EeyCZcgjH7ak5u5v28m; Kiln2 — "7%" commission, "7%" MEV commission, vote account HCvnhbT3Sn5RsueDisWzzn5FkW8tAqoQK1dr7cvAVzin. The same page adds: "Each validator commission rate is public and the same for all funds on a given validator. The validator takes its commission automatically when rewards are generated. Your staking rewards are distributed net of the validator commission." These are Solana validator rates only. Of the 26 validator protocol pages Kiln documents (https://docs.kiln.fi/v1/llms.txt, read 10 November 2026), only this page and the NEAR page print a commission figure, https://www.kiln.fi/pricing returns 404, and no institutional contract rate is published.
Weighted criteria
If a validator you delegated to gets slashed, who actually writes the cheque?34%
How long are the assets locked per network, and did they tell you before you signed?22%
Can you find the rate you would actually pay without booking a sales call?24%
Do you keep custody and still get to vote — and who presses the button?20%
Head-to-head comparisons

Research the shortlist

Starter guides
How to stake crypto and earn yieldStaking yield is real, but the right setup depends on custody posture, lock-up tolerance, and how much validator complexity you want to manage.
Starter guides
How to lend or borrow cryptoCrypto lending and borrowing can generate yield or unlock liquidity, but the real decision is about counterparty risk, collateral ratios, and liquidation mechanics.
Methodology

How this category is reviewed

Ranked on four questions: If a validator you delegated to gets slashed, who actually writes the cheque? How long are the assets locked per network, and did they tell you before you signed? Can you find the rate you would actually pay without booking a sales call? Do you keep custody and still get to vote — and who presses the button?

The order on this page is the published ranking for this category. Every criterion, weight and source behind it is on the methodology page.
Frequently asked

Questions people ask before choosing staking

Can I find out what this costs before talking to sales?
Not from anyone in this pool. Zero of the seven publish the price an institution would actually pay — every operator routes the rate to a commercial conversation. Where numbers do exist they cover a fraction of what is offered: one operator’s pricing page returns 404 while only two of its twenty-three documented networks carry a rate anywhere. Treat any published percentage as an anchor for the negotiation rather than the price, and ask for the rate on YOUR networks specifically.
Is the slashing protection real?
All seven advertise it. Only three name an insurer at all, and none publishes terms a buyer could read before signing. Where the cover is described it is narrower than the marketing implies — one is an opt-in purchase covering Ethereum only and double-signing only, which excludes the downtime penalties that are far more common. The question to ask is not whether they have coverage but what it excludes, what the limit is, and whether you can see the policy.
Why do the numbers on an operator’s own site disagree?
Because nobody reconciles them, and it is universal here: seven of seven contradict themselves on their own domain, on the exact figures an allocator underwrites. One prints two different Ethereum service fees in near-identical wording — 10% of total rewards in one place, 30% of execution-layer rewards in another. Another’s marketing page and its documentation disagree on how long unstaking takes. Get the number you are relying on restated in the agreement.
How long is my capital actually locked?
The unbonding period belongs to the network, but what the operator adds to it — and whether they tell you — belongs to the operator. Six of seven publish no review date on any per-network lock-up figure, and one states explicitly that it "undertakes no obligation to update the information". On the one network where the figure genuinely moves, disclosure is thinnest. Ask for the current number in writing rather than reading it off a page with no date.
Reviewed10 November 2026Method4 criteriaCategorystaking
Not financial advice · For informational purposes only · Always do your own research