Running an Ethereum validator is not a household activity for most. The upfront cost of 32 ETH is now about $85,000, and it peaked at over $150,000 at the top of last year’s cycle. Furthermore, validators have to lock their ether for an unknown amount of time, adding further uncertainty to a rather large investment. This is not to say that nobody is interested in staking ether, as there are almost 300,000 active validators locking 8% of the ether supply.
