Ethereum's staking boom looks difficult to justify as an income trade, but the investors committing billions may be playing a different game.

Put €10,000 into Ethereum staking at a 2.2% annual return and, if ETH's price stays unchanged, you'll earn about €220 over a year.

That's just €7 more than the same amount would earn at the average rate on new euro household deposits with maturities up to one year, but with Ethereum's price volatility attached to every cent of your investment.

Investors are still lining up, though, with roughly 1.38 million ETH waiting to enter staking as of Oct. 23 and an estimated wait of 24 days and nine hours.

Another 44.1 million ETH, more than 36% of the supply, is already staked to help secure the network and earn rewards. The queue is smaller than the 2.06 million ETH backlog tracked in August, but still leaves new direct validators waiting weeks to earn.

The mismatch makes more sense once you separate someone shopping for an interest rate from someone who has already decided to own ETH. BitMine has about $12 billion staked, and its decision involves earning extra tokens on a vast Ethereum position it intends to hold.

Staking commits ETH to Ethereum's validation process, where operators run software that checks transactions and helps keep the network in agreement about its records.

Investors can run that operation themselves or use a service such as Lido , which pools ETH and issues stETH, a transferable token representing a share of the pool and its rewards.

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