Blockdaemon Bulletin | May 2026

Blockdaemon Bulletin | May 2026

By: Conor Keville

Welcome to the May edition of the Blockdaemon Bulletin.

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Company Updates

Governance-Aware Signing for Canton Transactions

Blockdaemon’s Institutional Vault supports governance-aware Canton Gateway signing, helping institutions apply policy controls, transaction review, and approval workflows before signatures are produced. As Canton adoption grows across regulated financial use cases, the Gateway’s open signer framework enables applications to connect through a standard interface while delegating key management and signing to dedicated infrastructure. Blockdaemon’s integration brings institutional-grade controls to this model, including decoded transaction review, maker-checker approvals, and function-level policy enforcement for Canton applications. More details are available in the full blog.

Blockdaemon’s Ethereum Validators Deliver 2.89% PRR in April

Ethereum staking conditions strengthened in April as on-chain activity increased across DeFi and tokenized asset settlement, supporting a 10.5% month-over-month rise in network-wide MEV rewards.

Blockdaemon’s validator fleet delivered a 2.89% Protocol Reward Rate (PRR) versus the ~2.84% network average, outperforming the network by approximately 5 basis points and ranking #1 among institutional staking providers for the month. Outperformance was supported by stable validator operations, continued execution-layer optimization, and stronger MEV conditions across the network.

Download the April 2026 Ethereum Validators Performance Report for a detailed analysis of validator queue dynamics, execution-layer and MEV trends, protocol upgrade developments, institutional ETF momentum, corporate digital asset treasury activity, and Blockdaemon’s performance relative to network benchmarks.

Blockdaemon’s Solana Validator Delivers 6.41% PRR in April

Solana staking rewards moderated further in April, but Blockdaemon’s validator continued to outperform the network average. Blockdaemon delivered a 6.41% Protocol Reward Rate (PRR), finishing 22 basis points above the network average and extending its outperformance streak to seven consecutive months.

April’s report examines declining vote-only, MEV, and fee-derived rewards across the network, while highlighting Blockdaemon’s continued validator consistency and operational resilience.

Download the full April Solana Validator Performance Report for detailed validator metrics, market analysis, and institutional staking insights.

Blockdaemon Expands Arc Testnet Support With WebSockets

Blockdaemon has expanded support for Arc Public Testnet with WebSocket access, giving developers and institutions real-time connectivity for building and testing on Arc. Teams can now monitor new blocks, subscribe to smart contract events, test wallets and dashboards, and prepare event-driven applications ahead of mainnet using Blockdaemon’s institutional-grade infrastructure. This update strengthens Blockdaemon’s role in supporting Arc’s developer ecosystem with reliable RPC and WebSocket connectivity for production-ready testnet workflows.

Ethereum Glamsterdam: What Institutional Stakers Need to Know

Ethereum’s upcoming Glamsterdam upgrade is expected to introduce important changes for institutional stakers, including enshrined proposer-builder separation, Block-Level Access Lists, state creation gas repricing, and potential exit queue improvements. These updates could affect MEV access, execution-layer rewards, validator performance, fee dynamics, and staking liquidity planning. In our latest blog, we explain what Glamsterdam means for staking reward reliability, long-term Ethereum scalability, and how Blockdaemon helps institutions manage protocol upgrades with secure, reliable, and performance-focused staking infrastructure.

Event Recap

Consensus 2026 | Miami

CEO and Founder Konstantin Richter joined Shift Markets and Jito Labs on the Convergence Stage, moderated by CoinDesk, for a panel on what institutional DeFi actually requires at scale - from infrastructure and adoption barriers to what comes next for Wall Street's move into digital assets.

Read more: Institutional DeFi Is Moving from Possibility to Infrastructure

Crypto Finance Forum | London

COO Amor Sexton joined State Street, Franklin Templeton and Citi, moderated by Cryptio, for a panel going deep on the operational realities of tokenization - from issuance and collateral mobility to NAV integrity and what actually changes for institutions building on-chain.

Read more: Tokenization’s Next Phase is Operational

National Finance Conference | Dublin

COO Amor Sexton joined Concordium, Consensys and Superteam Ireland, moderated by Newstalk, to tackle whether stablecoins are ready for Europe's mainstream payment infrastructure - covering MiCA's impact, real adoption barriers, and what institutional readiness actually looks like.

Nordic Blockchain Week | Stockholm

Head of UK and Ireland Danny Bailey joined Brava Finance, European Blockchain Convention, Figment and Deploi on stage for a session on crypto yield strategies - covering staking, lending, and the next generation of institutional yield infrastructure.

Benchmark-StoneX Digital Assets Summit | New York

Chief DeFi and Protocols Officer Demetrios Skalkotos joined Anchorage Digital, Fireblocks and Talos for a panel on crypto infrastructure and trading in a new regulatory regime.

Upcoming Events

Istanbul Blockchain Week | Istanbul

ETHConf | New York

Catch the Blockdaemon Team in London

London Tech Week

June 8 - 12

FIA's International Derivatives Expo

June 15

The Future of Finance Awards

June 18

We're continuously expanding our team.

Stay tuned.