TrueStake
Frequently asked questions
Common questions about pricing, reconciliation units, coverage years, and how TrueStake verifies staking yield to the wei.
Data & trust
- Where does TrueStake's data come from?
- From Ethereum itself. TrueStake reads your validators' consensus- and execution-layer activity from its own self-hosted node infrastructure and cross-checks every derived figure against the actual on-chain settlement events — sweep withdrawals, fee-recipient payments, user-triggered withdrawals. Prices come from stored exchange data with the source named on every row. No exchange accounts, no aggregator numbers taken on faith: every figure traces to a public, verifiable source.
- What does "reconciled to the wei" actually mean?
- A wei is the smallest unit of ETH — one quintillionth. TrueStake derives what your validators should have earned, then verifies that against what actually arrived on-chain at your withdrawal address, down to that smallest unit (within a default tolerance of 100 wei, roughly a hundred-quintillionth of an ETH). If derived and actual disagree beyond that, you see a finding — not a silently smoothed number.
- What happens when a number doesn't reconcile?
- We surface it, we don't bury it. A discrepancy beyond tolerance becomes a reconciliation finding attached to the record: what was derived, what was observed, and where they diverge. An unexplained discrepancy is information you want on the record — an auditor will feel the same way.
- What is an Audit Grade?
- A per-line provenance label that tells you exactly what each number was verified against — not a quality score. Chain Derived means verified against on-chain settlement events you originated; Oracle Derived (coming with liquid staking support) means verified against the protocol's own published Oracle accounting. Every receipt, dashboard line, and Tax Report row names its grade. See What is audit grade?.
- Can I — or my CPA — verify a number myself?
- Yes; that's the design. Every line carries a citation: the on-chain transaction or block behind it (linked to a public explorer), the data source that produced it, and the price observation that valued it. Pick any row and trace it back to the chain without trusting TrueStake's word for it.
- How current is my data?
- Your dashboard carries a Freshness Stamp — "Data through <date>" — showing the last night your account's data was ingested and reconciled. Updates run nightly. The stamp is per-account, so it reflects your data specifically, not a site-wide status light. See the Freshness Stamp explained.
Privacy & security
- Do you need my private keys, seed phrase, or exchange logins?
- Never. TrueStake is read-only: you provide a withdrawal address — public information already visible on-chain — and we read public chain data. There is nothing to sign, no key to share, no exchange to connect. No KYC and no exchange API keys, ever — those are permanent design decisions, not a roadmap item.
- Can TrueStake move or touch my funds?
- No. A withdrawal address can receive and be observed — it cannot be used to move anything. TrueStake holds no keys, no custody, and no transaction authority of any kind. We produce records; we cannot act on your stake.
- What personal data do you store, and how is it treated?
- The staking identifiers you give us or that follow from them — withdrawal addresses, validator public keys, fee recipients — are treated as sensitive personal data, because linked together they describe your on-chain footprint. We collect no identity documents and no financial-account credentials. The full inventory of what we do and don't collect is published in our standards.
- Who else sees my data?
- No one beyond the infrastructure vendors it takes to run the service — each named in our published sub-processor list and bound by a data processing agreement. We don't sell data, share it with analytics brokers, or use it for anything other than producing your records.
Coverage & scope
- Which staking setups are supported today?
- ETH validators where you own the withdrawal credentials: solo stakers running their own hardware, and hosted or SaaS-managed setups (Allnodes, Stakefish, Kiln, Figment, and similar) where a provider operates the node but the withdrawal address is yours. ETH only at launch.
- Do you support liquid staking (stETH, rETH) or exchange staking?
- Not yet. Liquid staking tokens need a different verification model — receipts reconciled against the protocol's own on-chain Oracle accounting (what we'll label Oracle Derived) rather than your own settlement events. It's designed and on the roadmap. Exchange staking, where the exchange holds the keys and reports on its own schedule, is further out. Join the waitlist and we'll email you when your setup is covered.
- How far back can you build my history?
- To the beginning of your validators' withdrawal history. Withdrawal-based income exists from the Shapella upgrade (April 2023), when staked ETH first became withdrawable; block-proposal income at your fee recipient goes back to the Merge (September 2022). You buy history one validator-year at a time — see the billing questions below — and TrueStake backfills every validator active in the years you pick.
- What if my validators still have 0x00 (BLS) withdrawal credentials?
- Validators with legacy 0x00 credentials can't receive withdrawals until they're upgraded (a one-time, irreversible on-chain message your node or provider tooling performs). Until then there are no settlement events to reconcile — so no withdrawal income exists to report under TrueStake's recognition default. Once upgraded, sweeps begin and TrueStake picks them up. Details: 0x00 credentials.
- Do you track MEV and priority fees?
- Yes. Block-proposal income — priority fees and MEV-Boost payments to your fee recipient — is recorded per event, cross-checked between relay data and the actual on-chain balance movement, with the on-chain record as the authority. It appears in your dashboard as execution-layer income and in your Tax Report as cited rows like everything else.
- How do slashing and penalties show up?
- Recorded and shown, never hidden — and never silently netted against your income. Penalty events appear in an isolated, clearly-labeled informational section of the Tax Report, separate from income totals, so you and your tax professional can see exactly what happened and decide how to treat it. How penalties should be treated on a return is an unsettled area of US tax law; TrueStake presents the record and takes no position.
Tax & reports
- Is TrueStake tax advice?
- No. TrueStake produces reconciled records and documents the methodology behind every number. It does not give tax advice, take positions for you, or file anything. Your CPA (or you) prepares the return; TrueStake's job is to make the numbers they work from verifiable.
- When does TrueStake recognize staking income?
- The computed default is withdrawal-time recognition: income is recognized when ETH is actually credited to your withdrawal address (or fee recipient), valued at that day's fair market value. This is consistent with IRS Rev. Rul. 2023-14's dominion-and-control standard and is the conservative reading most tax professionals apply today. Because TrueStake stores the underlying receipts as immutable facts and computes recognition at report time, your history can be recomputed if guidance changes. Not tax advice — consult your tax professional.
- How is the USD value of each receipt determined?
- Each receipt is valued at a stored daily close price for its recognition date (dates keyed to US Eastern Time, matching how tax years are drawn), from named sources — Kraken as primary, CoinGecko as corroboration/fallback. Every Tax Report row shows which source priced it, the observation timestamp, and whether the two sources agreed. If no stored price exists for a date, the report is blocked rather than estimated.
- Which jurisdictions do you support?
- US federal reporting, with the state overlay documented in our Learn library, at launch. TrueStake's architecture keeps chain data separate from jurisdiction rules, so additional jurisdictions can be added without touching the reconciliation engine — but only US reports ship today.
- Will I receive a 1099-DA? Does TrueStake issue one?
- If you stake through a custodial exchange, that broker may issue you a 1099-DA. Solo and self-custodied validators will not receive one — the final broker regulations exclude non-custodial infrastructure — which means your staking income is self-reported either way. TrueStake doesn't issue tax forms; it produces the audit-quality record that self-reporting rests on. The obligation to recognize staking income existed before the form and doesn't depend on receiving one.
- What happens if tax law changes after I file?
- Your underlying records don't change — and that's the point. TrueStake stores what happened on-chain as immutable receipts and computes tax recognition at report time, so a changed rule means recomputation from the same facts, not a data reconstruction project. Whether and how to amend a filed return is a question for your tax professional.
Billing & lock-in
- What's a validator-year?
- One validator reconciled for one calendar year — the only thing TrueStake ever bills on. A validator active for part of a year counts only for its active days. A validator-year is TrueStake's reconciliation unit for validator staking: as other staking models arrive, each gets its own equivalent unit, and none of them are ETH amounts or position values.
- Why don't you charge per ETH held?
- Your validator count is the work we do. A validator's ETH balance doesn't change what we reconcile — charging per ETH would punish you for your own staking success.
- What does it cost?
- $25 per validator, per tax year, charged once. There is no subscription, no plan to choose, and no volume ladder — the rate is the same for one validator as for 50, and the same whether the year is this one or a past one. Buy only the years you actually need to file.
- Can I buy a past tax year?
- Yes, and at the same rate as the current one. A past year is the common case: you buy each year you need to file, once, and that purchase includes that year's Tax Report. Nothing has to be active or ongoing for a past year to be available.
- Can I try it before paying?
- Yes. Connect your withdrawal address and the live dashboard runs on the last 30 days of your staking history, reconciled to the wei, with no card and no validator limit. The Tax Report is what you pay for — everything up to it is free to look at first.
- What if I run more than 50 validators?
- Self-serve checkout runs to 50 validators. Above that we onboard you by hand and agree pricing with you first — nothing is charged before terms are settled. Your validators are still tracked and reconciled in the meantime; the ceiling is a checkout limit, not a limit on what TrueStake will read.
- What happens if I stop?
- You keep your records. Export your Tax Reports and your full data as CSV and walk away — TrueStake is read-only and holds nothing of yours to reclaim. There is nothing to cancel: a validator-year you bought stays bought, and the report it unlocked stays downloadable. No lock-in is a design decision.
For accountants & CPAs
- What will my client actually hand me?
- A Tax Report as XLSX or CSV. The Detail sheet is one row per income event with the ETH amount, USD value, recognition date, the authority citation, a chain reference linking to the underlying on-chain transaction, and the price source with its observation timestamp. A Summary sheet carries totals and the methodology metadata; penalty events, if any, sit on a separate informational sheet outside the income totals.
- How do I verify a single line?
- Follow the row's chain reference to the public block explorer and you'll find the settlement event — same date, same amount in ETH. The row also names the price source and observation timestamp behind its USD value. That's one line verified end-to-end in about a minute, without trusting the tool that produced it.
- Can the figures be recomputed from the chain?
- Yes — every figure is derived from public chain data and reconciled against on-chain settlement events, with the raw source payloads preserved verbatim. Given the methodology (published on our standards pages) and the chain references, a third party can reproduce any number independently. That's the audit-defense posture: the record doesn't ask to be trusted.
- What recognition method does the report apply?
- Withdrawal-time recognition: income at the moment ETH is credited to the withdrawal address or fee recipient, valued at that date's FMV. This is consistent with Rev. Rul. 2023-14's dominion-and-control standard and is the conservative of the two readings practitioners discuss (the earning-time reading — recognition at each validator-balance credit — is also within the ruling's scope but is not computed by TrueStake today). The report documents its method; the filing position remains yours and your client's.
- How is fair market value sourced and documented?
- Stored daily close prices keyed to the receipt's US-Eastern calendar date — the same convention that draws the tax-year boundary — from Kraken (primary) corroborated against CoinGecko. Every row discloses its price source, the close timestamp, and a corroboration status; on a source-disagreement day the row proceeds on the primary price and says so. Missing prices block the report rather than being estimated.
- My client got a 1099-DA. How does the report reconcile with it?
- A 1099-DA reflects a custodial broker's view of activity it processed; the TrueStake report reflects the on-chain record. For self-custodied validators there is no 1099-DA and the report stands as the client's own substantiation. Where both exist, the chain references let you tie each reported figure to the underlying events and identify exactly where a broker's number and the chain diverge — which is the conversation an examiner would want documented anyway.
- How are penalties and negative events presented?
- On a dedicated informational sheet, valued and dated, isolated from income totals — presentation without characterization. The deductibility and character of staking penalties is an unsettled area; the report gives you the complete, cited record of what occurred and leaves the treatment to professional judgment.