How to Stake ETH with Brick Towers using your Ledger Device

This runbook provides a step-by-step description of how to stake your ETH from your Ledger hardware wallet using Ledger Live with Brick Towers’ staking dashboard.

Preparations and what you should be aware of

Before you start, please make sure to have at least 32 ETH plus some spare change on your Ethereum account, as the minimum deposit to stake in a native non-custodial manner is 32 ETH and about 0.00075 ETH to 0.00225 ETH — depending on the prevailing gas price at the time of staking — is required to finance the deposit transaction for staking. For smaller ETH holdings, please check out our Swiss Liquid Staking vault which allows you to stake small denominations of ETH (please be mindful of the fees here as well which we have summarised in this article, as a rule of thumb, staking amounts below $600 for less than a year won’t yield a positive net reward after gas fees. Your Ledger device can also be used for this).

If you have multiples of 32 ETH in your Ethereum account, you can stake those at once, the gas fees will then be higher, depending on the number of multiples of 32 ETH.
Here is a table with some example calculations of how to think about the gas cost incurred, depending on the number of validators, ETHUSD price, and gas price, when making staking deposits:

As you can see, the relative gas cost decreases with the rising number of validators, but even for a single validator, the cost incurred for staking during higher gas price phases is still below a single basis point of the staking principal value.

It is however still recommended to use the early hours of the Central European Time Zone (CET), to conduct staking, e.g. 6–8 am CET, as during this time window, the congestion on the Ethereum blockchain is significantly lower than during the later mornings and afternoon/evening hours. This is mostly because during these hours the American continent where a large portion of the used block space in Ethereum originates from, is typically less active during this time.

Fiat On-Ramp

In case you don’t have enough ETH to conduct native dedicated staking yet, please feel free to use one of the prevailing fiat on-ramp providers which allow you to buy ETH with your fiat currency (mostly USD, EUR, CHF, and GBP on-ramps are available) and have it deposited into your Ethereum account directly. There are usually two options, one cost-optimized using bank wire transfers which might take a day or longer (over the weekend) until the money arrives at the providers’ bank account and hence the ETH are sent with delay to your wallet, or the quick instant option by credit cards or Google/Apple Pay etc. which comes with a much higher cost (starting from 3.8% upwards). In terms of user experience and success rate, we can recommend the following services from Switzerland:

1. Bity
2. DFX
3. Mt Pelerin

Please note that independent of the fiat on-ramp provider, there are laws in place that every provider has to follow in terms of performing checks on your identity (KYC = Know Your Customer checks).

Below the following transaction volume thresholds, no identification is required:

• CHF 1,000 per day (or equivalent in other currencies)
• CHF 15,000 per month (or equivalent in other currencies)
• CHF 100,000 per year (or equivalent in other currencies)

To buy above these thresholds, you will need to go through the respective provider’s KYC process, which usually involves providing some details of personal data, taking a picture of your identity document, and taking a selfie. Depending on the transaction size, additional identity verification methods may be applied.

Ledger, Wallet Connect, Brick Towers Dashboard

To conduct the staking operation, please have the following ready:

1. Ledger hardware wallet (whatever device you have, compatible with the Ledger Live app) plugged into your computer/laptop
2. Ledger Live app launched, on which you have your Ethereum account and the ETH to stake available (with balance ≥ 32 ETH principle + gas for transactions)
3. Brick Towers dashboard: https://dashboard.bricktowers.io/ opened in a browser window

Fast Track

The following fast track is for the experienced Ledger and Web3 user. For a more detailed walk-through with corresponding screenshots, check out the Detailed Process Walkthrough below.

1. Preparation

• Ensure you have at least 32 ETH in your Ledger wallet, plus extra for gas fees (around 0.00075 ETH to 0.00225 ETH).
• If you have smaller amounts, use the Swiss Liquid Staking Vault.

2. Install Brick Towers Plugin

• In Ledger Live, go to My Ledger and search for “Brick Towers.”
• Install the Brick Towers plugin to enable staking.

3. Connect Ledger to Brick Towers Dashboard

• Open dashboard.bricktowers.io.
• Sign up or log in using Google, Microsoft, LinkedIn, or email.
• Accept the terms, and create an account for staking.

4. Stake ETH

• On the dashboard, navigate to the ETH staking page and select Connect Wallet > Ledger Live > Desktop.
• In Ledger Live, select your Ethereum account and connect it to the dashboard.
• Verify the wallet address and choose the number of validators (1 validator = 32 ETH).
• Confirm the staking terms and click Stake now.
• Authorize the transaction on Ledger Live and your Ledger device.

Detailed Process Walkthrough

The following walk-through presents a typical staking transaction, going step by step through the relevant steps involved on the Ledger Live app, your Ledger device, and the Brick Towers dashboard in your browser.

We first present the standard case where everything works fine. Further below, we also present what to do to resolve potential issues.

Ledger Live App showing > 32 ETH balance on the Ethereum account

1. Install the Brick Towers Plugin on Ledger Live

1.1 Go to My Ledger, search for “Brick Towers” in the App catalog, and install the Brick Towers plugin (more info on the plugin here). This will allow you to use clear-signing when staking with Brick Towers. Please check out the clear-signing info here.

2. Connect Ledger to Brick Towers Dashboard

2.1 In your browswer, go to https://dashboard.bricktowers.io and wait until the Welcome sign-in page shows up to log into Brick Towers.

2.2 Sign up using your Google, Microsoft, LinkedIn account or email address and then log in.

2.3 Accept Brick Towers’ privacy policy and terms of service to continue.

2.4 In case it is the first time you are using the dashboard, you are registering your account. For this, review your name and email, provide optionally the name of the company you are associated with, and check the box to acknowledge Brick Towers’ General Terms And Conditions to continue to the dashboard.

2.5 Once in the dashboard, create a new account for your planned ETH staking position.

2.6 Provide a name and save the account, which will later show up on the left side menu under “Accounts”.

2.7 Navigate to the ETH staking page

2.8 On the ETH staking page, connect your Ledger Live app with the Brick Towers Dashboard, selecting 1. Connect Wallet, 2. Ledger Live and 3. Desktop. This makes the connection request pop up in Ledger Live

2.9 In Ledger Live, the request to “Connect to Brick Towers Dashboard” shows up, select the Ethereum account with your ETH balance to stake and hit “Connect”

2.10 After the successful connection has been established, return to the Brick Towers Dashboard.

3. Stake your ETH

3.1 Verify the connected wallet address displayed in the dashboard matches the Ethereum account address in Ledger Live. Once done, review the Account selected for your planned staking (Personal Stash in this example) select the number of validators you would like to spawn with the slider (1 = 32 ETH in this example), and check the box at the bottom to confirm you have familiarised yourself with Brick Towers’ Staking Terms of Service. Once done, “Stake now”.

3.2 The validator is spawned by Brick Towers and you are asked to sign the deposit transaction on Ledger Live.

3.3 On Ledger Live: Review and “Continue” to the next step…

3.4 Confirm the connection on your Ledger device.

3.5 In the final step, if you receive this message, it is a glitch, just retry and repeat step 3.4 if needed.

3.6 In the no-issue situation, you are asked again to open the Ethereum app on your Ledger device

3.7 Open the Ethereum app on your Ledger device.

3.8 Ledger Live then prompts you to review the details of the transaction on your Ledger device.

3.9 Review the transaction details step by step on your device.

3.10 You are using Brick Towers Native Staking to stake your ETH.

3.11 Review the amount.

3.12 Review max fees. Follow the instructions above to optimize the fees to be paid.

3.13 After successful review, accept and send the transaction on your device, which will generate the signature and broadcast the transaction to the Ethereum network.

3.14 Congratulations, after the deposit transaction has been confirmed, your validator(s) will be activated.

3.15 In the ETH account overview, you can see the list of validators and their status. Your “Deposited” validator will be “Active” once the activation queue has passed. You can view the progress on beaconcha.in.

3.16 On the beaconcha.in explorer, you can review the successful deposit on the execution layer. Depending on the length of the activation queue, the validator is activated within the indicated time window.

4. Review your stake and staking rewards over time

For each 32 ETH, a validator will be spawned on Brick Towers side and staking rewards will accumulate on each of these validators and be withdrawn to your denominated withdrawal address upon every validator “sweep”. At the time of writing (05.06.2024), with an active validator set of more than 1M, such a sweep can take up to almost 9 days, so you receive accumulated staking rewards since the last sweep every 9 days.

Here is an example how this looks like for an existing active validator on beaconcha.in:

Validator 408842 on beaconcha.in

In case of Issues: Brick Towers Support

Should you encounter any issues with your staking operation or you need some clarification, please feel free to reach out to support@bricktowers.io or write us a message on our public Telegram support channel.