Glossary

Plain-English definitions of the terms TrueStake's records depend on.

Audit grade

The provenance label on every number TrueStake shows you — it names exactly what that number was verified against, so you never have to guess. There are three grades: Chain Derived, Oracle Derived, and Best-Effort. An audit grade is not a quality score; it's an answer to "how do we know this is correct?"

At TrueStake: we deliver the best audit grade your staking setup allows, and we name it explicitly on every line.

See also: Chain Derived · Oracle Derived · Best-Effort · Trust model

Best-Effort

The audit grade for records built from public data sources when neither your own node data nor a protocol Oracle is available to verify against — the most accurate record constructible, with every source and its confidence level disclosed. Not offered today; reserved for future staking setups.

Chain Derived

The strongest audit grade: the amount was verified, to the wei, against an on-chain settlement event you originated — a sweep withdrawal, a user-triggered withdrawal, or a fee-recipient payment — with the raw source data preserved as evidence. The audit trail runs all the way to the blockchain, with no intermediary interpretation.

At TrueStake: solo and hosted validators get Chain Derived receipts.

See also: Audit grade · Receipt · Reconciliation · Sweep withdrawal

Coverage Year

A calendar year of your staking history that TrueStake has fetched, reconciled, and stands behind. You buy Coverage Years à la carte for the years you need to file; each includes that year's Tax Report. The current year is included with a paid subscription.

Dominion and control

The standard US tax law uses to decide when income is recognized: the moment a taxpayer can actually use, transfer, or dispose of what they received. IRS Rev. Rul. 2023-14 applies it to staking: rewards are income in the year the staker gains dominion and control over them.

At TrueStake: the computed default treats the withdrawal credit — the moment ETH reaches your withdrawal address — as that moment, consistent with the ruling. Not tax advice.

Fair market value (FMV)

The USD value of ETH at the time income is recognized — what US tax rules require staking income to be measured in. IRS guidance asks for a "reasonable manner, consistently applied."

At TrueStake: each receipt is valued at a stored daily close price for its recognition date (dates keyed to US Eastern Time), from named sources, with the source and timestamp disclosed on every row. Not tax advice.

Freshness Stamp

The "Data through <date>" badge on your dashboard — the date of your account's last successful nightly data run. It's scoped to your account, so it tells you how current your numbers are, not whether the service is up.

MEV

Maximal extractable value: extra value a block proposer earns from how transactions are ordered and bundled inside their block, paid by specialized builders competing for the slot. Distinct from priority fees, though both arrive at the validator's fee recipient address.

At TrueStake: MEV payments are recorded per block, cross-checked between relay data and the on-chain record — the chain wins disagreements.

Oracle Derived

The audit grade for liquid staking: the amount was verified, to the wei, against the staking protocol's own on-chain published Oracle accounting, with the Oracle report preserved as evidence. The audit trail ends at the protocol's Oracle rather than at your own node. Coming with liquid staking support.

Price provenance

The per-row record of which price observation valued a receipt: the source, the close timestamp, and whether a second source corroborated it. It's the price leg of the citation chain — the audit grade evidences the amount; price provenance evidences the USD value.

Receipt

TrueStake's unit of record: one on-chain settlement event — a sweep withdrawal, a user-triggered withdrawal, a fee-recipient payment — captured as an immutable fact with its raw source data preserved. Receipts are what get reconciled, cited, and carried into your Tax Report; tax treatment is computed from them at report time, never baked into them.

See also: Reconciliation · Chain Derived · Tax Report

Reconciliation

The core check behind the brand promise: for each account and period, TrueStake verifies that the sum of its recorded receipts matches your actual on-chain settlement, within the reconciliation tolerance. Any gap becomes a visible finding — never a silent adjustment.

Reconciliation tolerance

The maximum difference TrueStake accepts between a derived amount and the on-chain record before flagging a discrepancy: 100 wei by default — one ten-quadrillionth of an ETH. Tight enough to catch real errors; just loose enough to absorb rounding at data-source boundaries.

Sweep withdrawal

Ethereum's automatic payout mechanism: for validators with standard (0x01) withdrawal credentials, the protocol periodically "sweeps" any balance above 32 ETH to the withdrawal address — roughly every nine to twelve days, without anyone requesting it. Each sweep is an on-chain settlement event and becomes one receipt.

See also: Receipt · Withdrawal address · Chain Derived

Tax Report

TrueStake's annual export for a Coverage Year: XLSX and CSV, one row per income event, each row carrying its citation, chain reference, and price provenance — ready to hand to a CPA. Penalty events sit on a separate informational sheet, outside income totals.

See also: Coverage Year · Receipt · Price provenance

TrueYield

TrueStake's chain-verified staking-yield figure: realized income (consensus, execution, and MEV, net of penalties and missed duties), computed to the wei from reconciled receipts and annualized against staked principal. Shown as an effective realized rate with its basis always labeled, ETH-denominated with a USD equivalent, next to a network benchmark for fair comparison. It measures staking yield — it deliberately excludes ETH price appreciation.

Trust model

The answer to "who are you actually trusting when you rely on this number?" Chain Trust: the blockchain itself (Chain Derived records). Oracle Trust: the staking protocol's published Oracle accounting (Oracle Derived records). Source Trust: disclosed public data sources with confidence flags (Best-Effort records). TrueStake names the trust model instead of asking for blind trust in TrueStake.

See also: Audit grade · Chain Derived · Oracle Derived · Best-Effort

Validator

The unit of staking participation on Ethereum: 32 ETH deposited to the protocol, attesting and proposing blocks under a public key. Everything TrueStake reconciles and bills traces back to validators — never to ETH amounts or account values.

See also: Validator-year · Withdrawal address

Validator-year

One validator reconciled for one calendar year — the unit TrueStake bills on, prorated by the days the validator was actually active. A validator-year is TrueStake's reconciliation unit for validator staking; future staking models get their own equivalent unit. The billing axis is time and validator count, never ETH held or position value.

Withdrawal address

The Ethereum address your validator's income and principal are paid to — public information, written into the validator's on-chain credentials. It's the only thing you give TrueStake: it identifies where funds go but can never move them.