About Rocket Pool (RPL)
Rocket Pool is a staking pool for Ethereum 2.0. The protocol aims to reduce the hardware and capital requirements for ETH 2.0 staking, furthering Ethereum's decentralization and security. Rocket Pool is a decentralized staking infrastructure service provider that allows users, DApps, and enterprises to profit from staking their ETH holdings on the beacon chain. The $RPL token powers the protocol. The current price of RPL is live-tracked on Binance.
Rocket Pool comprises three main entities: Smart Contracts, Smart Node Networks, and Minipool Validators.
Rocket Pool smart contracts issue and track various tokens, receive staked ETH deposits, handle interactions with the beacon chain, and assign them to node operators. Additionally, they can recognize when a network's smart node has failed and immediately disable it so that it can't take on any more users until the issue has been resolved.
The smart node network is a decentralized network consisting of a group of special Ethereum nodes that run the Rocket Pool node software. They have customized back-end processes to interact with smart contracts in Rocket Pool. And, importantly, it can provide the network consensus needed for the beacon chain. Any user can participate in operating a smart node as long as they have 16 ETH. Providing a smart node to Rocket Pool gives the user additional rewards from the network.
Minipool Validators are another type of smart contract and a key part of Rocket Pool. Node operators create these smart contracts. When a node operator deposits 16 ETH in their node, their minipool contract also collects 16 ETH from users of the staking pool. When the Minipool contains 32 ETH, the funds are sent to the beacon chain to initiate staking, and a new validator is created, allowing the staked ETH to earn rewards.
Besides staking rewards, RPL is also used for governance. Two DAOs oversee the Rocket Pool protocol. The first of these DAOs is the Protocol DAO (PDAO), which speaks for the users who have actively used the protocol and contributed to its development. The second is the Oracle DAO (ODAO), a group of reputable stakeholder ecosystem participants who contribute to the protocol's success and oversee significant updates.
