# Ethereum Staking Yield Fell to 2.63% as Fee Revenue Slid By Enna Lee Canonical URL: https://www.tokenpost.com/news/investing/37588 Published: 2026-10-22T07:08:37.000Z Updated: 2026-10-22T07:08:37.000Z Section: Investing > Consensus rewards made up 2.53 percentage points of the average yield, while fees and maximal extractable value contributed 0.10 points. Ethereum’s gross annualized staking yield averaged 2.63% in Q3, down from 2.81% in Q2, as active stake grew and fee and maximal extractable value (MEV) revenue weakened. The decline came even as more Ether (ETH) entered staking and the amount held by active validators reached a record. Consensus rewards accounted for 2.53 percentage points of the quarter’s average yield. Priority fees and MEV added 0.10 percentage points. The gross measure weights daily reward rates by active effective balance and excludes operator fees. Ethereum’s reward formula divides by the square root of total active balance. When that balance rises, the consensus reward assigned to each validator falls, all else equal. Active validators held 43.80 million ETH at Q3-end, up from 40.24 million at the end of Q2. Net staking inflows were 1.99 million ETH in Q3, compared with 1.44 million in Q2. [TokenPost previously covered the quarter-end stake record and yield decline](). Fees and MEV contributed less to staking returns in Q3. Ethereum generated an average of 198 ETH per day from those sources in Q3, down from 331 ETH per day in Q2, a 40.2% drop. The network processed 199.32 million transactions in Q3, compared with 203.85 million in Q2. Average costs for four common transaction types fell to $0.45 from $1.35 in Q3 2025, while the block gas limit rose from 45 million to 60 million. The active validator count also declined, from close to 1.1 million to 881,139, even as the ETH held by validators increased. Pectra lets opted-in validators raise their maximum effective balance from 32 ETH to 2,048 ETH and supports validator consolidation. A lower validator count alone therefore does not indicate that less ETH is staked. The 2.63% figure measures network-level rewards before operator fees, not the net return each staker receives. ## Links in this article - [TokenPost previously covered the quarter-end stake record and yield decline](https://www.tokenpost.com/news/investing/35972)