I missed out on an instant 2% gain after staking ETH on Kraken today

Don’t make my mistake, here’s how you can do better than me (if you want to stake).

What I did: I was on Coinbase waiting list to stake ETH, after a while I was still not able to stake with CB so moved the funds to Kraken.

The account creation and staking was smooth enough. However, there were a 20 day “bonding” which I would earn no interest, I am happy with that so I staked the ETH. This process converted ETH to ETH.2s (1 to 1). Now I am waiting for the bonding period to lapse to start earning interest.

What I should have done if I knew: I would use my ETH to buy ETH2 on Kraken. The rate is 0.98 or something so I could have made extra ETH2 just by trading. My ETH2 would have earned interest from day 1 without having to wait for the bonding period.

So there you go, I could have made an extra 2% from the get go if I had known about the small print and ETH:ETH2 market. Note that this market is not available for US and Canada citizens yet due to legal reasons. I live in Europe so it was a stupid move to stake using the method I used.

Don’t be like me.