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What is proof of stake?
Proof of stake is a consensus mechanism in which validators lock up the network's coins as collateral to propose and approve blocks. Honest validators earn rewards; dishonest ones can lose part or all of their stake. Ethereum has used it since 2022.
What it means for you
On Ethereum, a payment reaches finality once two-thirds of staked ETH has attested to it; reversing it after that would mean destroying a large amount of ETH. If you stake through a service, its penalties come out of your coins.
How it works
On Ethereum, validators deposit 32 ETH and run an execution client, a consensus client and a validator client. Time runs in 12-second slots grouped into 32-slot epochs; in each slot one validator is picked at random to propose a block and a committee votes on it. Validators also vote on checkpoints: when a pair draws votes from at least two-thirds of all staked ETH, the earlier one is finalized and cannot be reverted without slashing a large share of stake. Offline validators miss rewards; provable cheating is slashed, from under 0.1% of stake for a lone offender up to the whole stake when many offend together.
Sources: ethereum.org: Proof-of-stake, ethereum.org: Consensus mechanisms · checked 4 October 2026
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