Survey: Nearly 70% of institutional investors holding Ethereum have participated in staking

According to a report by Blockworks Research, nearly 70% of institutional investors holding Ethereum have participated in staking, with 52.6% holding liquid staking tokens (LST). Nearly half of the institutions that stake ETH tend to use only one integrated platform, such as CEX. Meanwhile, 60.6% of survey participants also use third-party staking platforms.

The report states that one-fifth of the institutional investors surveyed allocate more than 60% of their portfolio to Ethereum or ETH-based LSTs. The respondents include exchanges, custodians, investment firms, asset management companies, wallet providers and banks. The key features considered by respondents when choosing a staking provider are reputation, supported network range, price, ease of participation, competitive cost and professional knowledge and scalability.

When deciding whether staking is feasible or not liquidity and security are also important characteristics for institutional investors. On a scale from 1 to 10,the average importance score for liquidity was rated at an 8.5 reflecting investor concerns about exiting large LST positions when necessary . At the same time ,security scored higher with an average importance rating at a9 .4 due to fears that withdrawal efficiency could be affected during market volatility . In addition ,61 .1 %of respondents said they would be willing to pay extra fees for enhanced security and fault tolerance capabilities.Geographical location also plays a role; half of the institutional investors consider validator's location important when selecting a staking platform.