With the recent launch of Ethereum 2.0, people are now rushing to the launchpad for staking
But is it worth it?
The rewards are looking very appealing but the stake is going to stay illiquid for a long time. Will a third party staking provider help in mitigating some risk?
I have heard of some exchanges providing eth2 staking services to their users. One of the such exchanges is Binance:
https://www.binance.com/en/support/announcement/a640a714e067433abae871f6b621836fHowever, it doesn't solve the problem of the staked eth being illiquid for a long period of time according to this section:
Lock-up period: For participating ETH 2.0 Staking, the ETH will be locked up for about 2 years and cannot be redeemed in advance.
The benefit of using exchanges like Binance or Coinbase to stake is that they take care of all operational costs and penalties if any. The long staking period seems to be from eth2 itself to ensure the network is kept live till Beacon chain goes life sometime in 2022.