What if my validators still have 0x00 (BLS) withdrawal credentials?
0x00 is the original, pre-Capella withdrawal credential type — legacy BLS credentials, derived from a private BLS key rather than an execution-layer address. If your validator was activated before the Shapella upgrade and was never explicitly upgraded, there's a good chance it's still 0x00.
What 0x00 means practically
A validator with 0x00 credentials cannot receive any withdrawal — partial (the automatic sweep above 32 ETH) or full (after exit) — until it's upgraded to 0x01. The protocol has nowhere on-chain to send the funds.
Your consensus-layer balance keeps accruing normally. It's the payout mechanism that's blocked, not the earning.
What this means in TrueStake
TrueStake discovers validators by withdrawal address (see How TrueStake discovers your withdrawal addresses) — and 0x00 credentials don't contain one. In practice that means a 0x00 validator joins your TrueStake account when its upgrade lands on-chain and its credentials start naming an address you've linked. If 0x00 validators are a significant part of your setup, email us and we'll talk through where things stand.
Two things are true in the meantime:
- If your validator proposes blocks, it still receives execution-layer payments — priority fees and MEV-Boost payments — at its fee recipient address, independent of withdrawal credentials. Once the validator is linked to your account, those fee-recipient payments are recorded as receipts like any other.
- Your accrued-but-unpaid consensus-layer balance has no on-chain settlement event to reconcile against, so it isn't recorded as a receipt — TrueStake's receipts represent settled, on-chain facts, not projected balances.
Upgrading to 0x01 (or 0x02)
The upgrade is a one-time, irreversible message — a BLS-to-execution-change — signed with your validator's BLS withdrawal key. It's a chain operation you or your node operator/provider perform; TrueStake doesn't perform the upgrade on your behalf. Most node operators and providers offer tooling for it.
Once submitted and included on-chain, your validator's credentials become 0x01 (or, post-Pectra, 0x02 directly), pointing at the execution address you choose.
After you upgrade
Any balance above 32 ETH becomes due for the next automatic sweep, which lands roughly every 9–12 days. That sweep — and every one after it — is the on-chain settlement event TrueStake reconciles against, and the resulting receipts build your record from there.
What this means for your tax record
Fee-recipient payments settle immediately on-chain, so recognition happens at that same moment — consistent with Rev. Rul. 2023-14's dominion-and-control standard, TrueStake's default. A sweep-pending consensus-layer balance, by contrast, has no settlement event yet. What that timing difference means for a given year is a conversation for your tax professional.
Questions?
Email support@truestake.io — especially if you're not sure whether your validators are 0x00 or already upgraded.