Distributing Skimmed Rewards
The ETH rewards you receive for running a validator for Ethereum are routinely sent to your minipools in a process referred to as "skimming". The frequency of skims depends on the number of activate validators on the Beacon Chain. At the time of writing the number of validators is around 500,000 which results in a skim occurring approximately every 2-3 days.
Skimmed rewards will accrue in each of your minipools until you "distribute" them. This process distributes the skimmed rewards between you, as the node operator, and rETH holders based on your commission rate and ratio of supplied and provided ETH.
In order to access your minipool's balance, you will need to upgrade to the Atlas delegate first. The old Redstone delegate cannot be used to distribute the minipool's balance.
Automatic Distribution
By default, the Smartnode is configured to automatically distribute any of your minipools when their individual balances reach 1 ETH. This threshold can be configured in the TUI by following the steps below.
Run:
Navigate to the setting Smartnode and TX Fee Settings > Auto Distribute Threshold shown below.
Changing this setting will adjust the threshold at which the Smartnode will automatically distribute your minipools. Setting the parameter to 0 will disable automatic distributions.
If you decide to disable automatic distribution, it is important that you still perform a manual distribution on a regular basis. Read the manual distribution section that follows on how to do this.
After a long period of time your skimmed rewards may exceed 8 ETH. If this situation occurs you will no longer be able to distribute them and will need to exit your validator to access your accrued rewards.
Rocket Pool features a failsafe design which allows anyone, after a long waiting period, to distribute your minipool when its balance exceeds 8 ETH. To protect your capital, the Smartnode monitors this situation and will automatically exit your minipool if it occurs.
Manual Distribution
If you have disabled the automatic distribution of skimmed rewards, you will need to routinely distribute them yourself with the following process.
You can also manually distribute your rewards using this process at any time without waiting for the automatic process above.
If your minipool has less than 8 ETH in it, you can distribute your rewards using the following command:
This will show you the minipools you have that are eligible for distribution, how much ETH they have, and how much ETH you (the node operator) will receive:
Any minipools using the original launch delegate will be mentioned at the start, letting you know that you cannot call distribute-balance on them until you upgrade their delegates.
This delegate was written before skimmed withdrawals were specified and, as such, do not feature a way to distribute skimmed rewards.
Note that for eligible minipools, you are also shown the refund amount. This is an amount owed directly to you (for example, because you had a balance in your minipool prior to migrating from a 16-ETH bond down to an 8-ETH bond or you converted a solo validator into a minipool with existing rewards). It will not be shared with the rETH holders.
Enter the number of the minipool that you want to distribute. You will be prompted with the gas price chart as usual, and asked to confirm your decision. Once you have, your minipool's balance will be distributed:
As you can see from the transaction, this provided the node's withdrawal address with the node's share of the rewards (plus the refund amount) and returned the rest to the staking pool.