# Coinbase Reports 99.75% Uptime in First Ethereum Validator Performance Report
Coinbase announced its first Ethereum validator performance report on March 19, detailing its operations and achievements for February 2025. The report aims to enhance transparency in its staking services by disclosing the operational status and performance of Coinbase validators.
# Significant Staking Contribution
According to the report, Coinbase operates a total of 120,000 Ethereum validators, staking 3.84 million ETH, which accounts for 11.42% of the total staked ETH. Additionally, Coinbase’s partners have staked an extra 581,500 ETH.
# Ensuring Stability and Security
The validators achieved an uptime of 99.75%, significantly surpassing the target of 99%. Coinbase emphasized security over achieving an extremely high uptime, as pushing for over 99.9% could increase the risk of double signing and slashing penalties.
“Protecting customer assets is our top priority, and we maintain an appropriate uptime strategy to ensure this,” said Coinbase. Thanks to this operational approach, Coinbase validators have never experienced slashing across any network, including Ethereum.
# High Participation Rate
The validators had a participation rate of 99.75%, excelling in primary Ethereum network validation duties such as block proposals and synchronization committee roles. These metrics indicate how effectively validators fulfill their roles in the blockchain consensus process.
Coinbase leverages Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) relays to propose blocks and supports sync committees, enhancing network stability by allowing lightweight clients to synchronize quickly and reliably.
# Global and Distributed Operations
Coinbase operates validators across five countries: Japan, Singapore, Ireland, Germany, and Hong Kong. It utilizes cloud service providers AWS and GCP to distribute operations. This strategy minimizes the impact on validator operations in the event of regional or provider-specific outages. Furthermore, Coinbase has an orchestration system for rapid validator migration between data centers to maintain service stability during prolonged disruptions.
# Client and Relay Diversification
Coinbase stresses the importance of maintaining client diversity for validator operations. Currently, Coinbase validators use Lighthouse and Prysm for consensus clients and Geth and Nethermind for execution clients. The company is considering additional clients to prevent majority dominance by any single client on the network.
Coinbase has diversified its MEV-Boost relays to six types to reduce centralization risks. The relays include Flashbots MEV-Boost Relay, bloXroute Max Profit Relay, ultra sound relay (censorship-resistant), Agnostic Relay (censorship-resistant), Aestus MEV-Boost Relay (censorship-resistant), and Titan Relay (censorship-resistant).
“Using various relays allows for optimal block selection, potentially resulting in higher staking rewards and minimizing risks from single relay failures,” explained Coinbase.
# Commitment to Transparency and Security
Through this report, Coinbase underscored its commitment to enhancing transparency in Ethereum validator operations and improving performance. “Our goal is to prioritize security while maintaining optimal validator performance. We will continue to operate with a focus on network stability and decentralization,” the company stated.
