Crypto investors are committing more tokens to securing blockchains even as rewards fall, with improving access helping drive demand while the economics of staking face a broader test.

“Ethereum now has more stake securing it than at any point in its history, with 43.8 million ETH staked or 35.9% of the total supply,” Kam Benbrik, head of onchain research at Bitwise, told CoinDesk.

Solana’s active stake climbed to 440.5 million SOL, according to Bitwise’s Q4 staking report.

Yet gross annualized staking yields fell on both networks.

The divergence raises questions about what drives investors to stake, how much they ultimately earn, and whether growing blockchain activity can offset declining returns from token issuance.

Staking involves…