This story was featured in Episode 527.

Obol Network introduced the Obol Contributions Program, a program that offers stakers recognition for their role in decentralizing Ethereum by staking on Obol distributed validators (DVs). Obol is also offering its stakers access to future governance rights within the Obol Collective. Users can stake by depositing into third-party vaults from partners like Stakely, Mellow Protocol, or Chorus One, or by deploying a DV directly via Obol’s DV Launchpad. In May 2024, Obol introduced the 1% for Decentralization (1forDS) retroactive fund, which allocates 1% of staking rewards from Obol’s DV clusters into a funding pool aimed at supporting decentralization. Obol’s distributed validators improve Ethereum’s fault tolerance by distributing a validator's key across multiple nodes.