Key Insights:
- Bhutan moved 320 ETH worth $906,500 to professional validator Figment on December 17,
- It marks the latest sovereign entry into an institutional staking infrastructure that now controls more than 99% of Ethereum’s validator set.
- The transaction represented Bhutan’s first ETH staking deployment as the broader institutional landscape passed $50 billion in liquid staking TVL.
Ethereum news showed Bhutan staked 320 ETH via Figment, following the pattern of large institutions outsourcing node operations.
Professional platforms now dominate Ethereum’s validator set, with liquid staking tokens holding 31-33% of staked ETH, centralized exchanges 24-25%, and solo stakers under 1%.
Institutional staking infrastructure matured into a prime brokerage business, complete with slashing insurance, custody integration, and regulatory compliance frameworks.
Ethereum News: Sovereign Chooses Institutional Rails Over Self-Custody
The Royal Government of Bhutan transferred 320 ETH to Figment’s staking infrastructure on December 17, according to on-chain data tracked by Arkham.
The move adds to another staking transaction registered on November 27, when Bhutan staked another 320 ETH batch.
Bhutan’s wallet previously showed a pattern of Ethereum sales, offloading 1,119 ETH worth $2.2 million over the past year while retaining 336 ETH worth $1.02 million alongside Bitcoin holdings of 6,154 BTC valued at $562 million.
Figment operates as a non-custodial validator, meaning that Bhutan retained ownership of the staked ETH while Figment managed the technical operations of the validator.
The arrangement mirrored the structure used by asset managers, exchanges, and large token holders accessing institutional staking infrastructure.
Professional Platforms Control 99% of the Validator Set
ETH maintained approximately 37 million Ethereum staked across more than 1 million active validators as of December 2025, representing 30% of the total supply.
The validator landscape shifted dramatically from early solo staking toward institutional platforms over the past two years.
Liquid staking tokens accounted for 33% of all staked ETH, with Lido alone holding around 28% of the entire staking base. Centralized exchanges controlled 25% of the staked supply, while traditional staking pools accounted for 18%.
Liquid restaking protocols captured 6% to 8% of staked ETH, leaving solo stakers with well under 1% of the total.
The concentration demonstrated how Ethereum news is increasingly centered on institutional infrastructure rather than individual validators.
Figment reported serving more than 1,000 institutional clients across asset managers, exchanges, wallets, foundations, and large token holders in its third-quarter validator report.
The platform maintained a 99.9% participation rate with zero slashing events during the quarter, operating under a “safety over liveness” philosophy designed to eliminate double-sign slashing risk.
This risk-adjusted approach appealed to institutions prioritizing capital preservation over maximum uptime.
Non-Custodial Operators Build Multi-Billion Dollar Infrastructure
Professional node operators created a distinct service layer separating validator operations from asset custody.
These platforms ran validators while clients retained Ethereum on their own balance sheets or at qualified custodians, with operators accessing validator keys through secure APIs.
Blockdaemon positioned itself as an institutional staking solution with 100% slashing insurance and SOC-style controls, claiming it helped deploy more than $6 billion in staking infrastructure for major financial institutions.
The platform offered native staking, liquid staking, restaking, and reporting APIs as an integrated suite.
Kiln operated more than 18,000 Ethereum validators for institutional clients according to Origin Protocol’s institutional staking analysis, while Allnodes managed over $2 billion in assets under management.
Newer infrastructure platforms like Validation Cloud and P2P.org pitched on-demand validator deployment with SOC 2 compliance and distributed validator technology support.
Figment’s offering included risk-adjusted rewards, OFAC-aware MEV relay selection, and slashing coverage as standard features.
The emphasis on MEV relay policy reflected institutional concern about regulatory exposure from transaction ordering decisions.
Ethereum News: Custody Integration Becomes Preferred Deployment Path
Institutions gravitated toward staking directly from custody platforms rather than managing separate validator relationships.
Coinbase Prime and Figment expanded their integration in October 2025, enabling more than $2 billion in staked assets to be held in cold custody without moving coins off-platform, while Anchorage Digital offered Ethereum staking and EigenLayer restaking from within its custody platform.
Regional custodians like Hex Trust marketed “validator plus custodian” stacks, while middleware platforms, including Fireblocks and MetaMask Institutional, routed large clients into staking protocols without requiring direct DeFi interface interaction.
The architecture shift turned Ethereum staking into a custody add-on comparable to securities lending in traditional prime brokerage.
Regulatory Clarity Drives Institutional Entry
Regulatory frameworks matured substantially in 2025, removing key barriers to institutional participation.
The US SEC issued an August 5 statement clarifying that some liquid staking receipts did not constitute securities, while MiCA-compliant staking platforms in Europe reportedly paid billions in rewards during early 2025.
CoinLaw tracked 474 total slashing incidents on Ethereum since inception, including 21 in the second quarter, demonstrating that slashing remained relatively rare but non-trivial for institutional risk models.
Figment’s third-quarter report documented two September 2025 security incidents affecting competing providers, highlighting its zero slashing record and SOC 2-style controls as differentiators.
Institutions evaluated staking providers against familiar checkboxes: qualified custody separation, SOC/ISO audits, clear slashing-loss waterfalls, MEV policies, sanctions compliance, and detailed reward reporting.
The Bhutan deployment illustrated that even sovereigns with technical resources chose to use existing institutional rails rather than operate validators independently.
Source: https://www.thecoinrepublic.com/2025/12/19/ethereum-news-bhutan-staked-906k-in-eth-through-figment-as-institutional-rails-reshape-ethereum-security/
