What Is Kiln? How the Enterprise Staking Platform Works

Kiln is a Paris-based staking infrastructure company that runs validators and yield products for businesses rather than individual retail accounts ¹⁶. Custodians, exchanges, wallets and asset managers plug Kiln into their own apps so that their users can stake assets on more than 30 proof-of-stake networks or deposit into DeFi vaults ¹². The company says it is non-custodial: client assets stay with the client's existing custodian or wallet ¹. Kiln earns a commission on the staking rewards it helps generate ³. It has no native token. In September 2025 an attack on its infrastructure led to a roughly $41 million loss at one client, SwissBorg ⁶⁸.

Facts checked October 23, 2026 9 cited sources No score on this page, no affiliate links

Kiln rating and evidence Best staking platforms ranking kiln.fi

Founded2021Staking provider Official sitekiln.fiopens in a new tab Incidents20 with recovery confirmed In our ratingsStaking platformsopen the scorecard

At a glance

What it is: Enterprise staking and on-chain yield infrastructure ¹
Based in: Paris, with offices in London and Singapore ²⁶
Co-founder and CEO: Laszlo Szabo ³
In staking since: 2018 (company-stated) ¹⁴
Networks: 30+ proof-of-stake networks (company-stated) ¹²
Assets delegated: $18B+ at its all-time high (company-stated, undated) ¹
Custody: Non-custodial; clients keep their own custodian ¹
Business model: Commission on staking rewards, plus SDK/API sales ³
Certification: SOC 2 Type II, audited by Insight Assurance ¹²
Native token: None
Official site: kiln.fi
Profile updated: October 23, 2026

Who Kiln serves

Kiln sells to institutions. Its named clients include asset managers (VanEck, 21Shares, CoinShares), wallets (Ledger, Trust Wallet), exchanges and brokers (Crypto.com, Bitpanda, Uphold) and custodians (Fireblocks, BitGo, Komainu) ¹. Many retail users touch Kiln without knowing it. In 2024 TechCrunch reported that Ledger, Crypto.com and Coinbase used Kiln's technology for pooled ETH staking in non-custodial wallets such as Ledger Live and Coinbase Wallet ³.

Kiln is venture-backed. It closed a $17 million round in December 2023, led by 1kx, bringing total funding to $35 million at the time ³.

Kiln products

Kiln's product line, as listed on its site ¹²:

Validators: institutional staking on 30+ networks, including Ethereum and Solana.
Dashboard: a portfolio view where clients stake, track rewards and pull reports.
Connect: an API and SDK that lets a platform build staking into its own app. This is the component involved in the 2025 incident ⁸.
Widget: a no-code "Earn" section a wallet or exchange can embed.
Onchain: white-label Ethereum staking smart contracts, with or without a liquid staking token.
DeFi: access to DeFi vault strategies, which Kiln says are overseen by third-party asset managers.
Restaking and Bitcoin staking, and a self-service dApp for ETH staking and restaking.

How Kiln staking works

Kiln does not take deposits into a Kiln account. A client keeps its assets with its own custodian (Fireblocks, BitGo, Coinbase Prime, Anchorage and others) ¹. The flow runs like this:

The client's platform requests a staking transaction from Kiln through the Dashboard or the Connect API.
Kiln returns an unsigned transaction, for example a delegation to a Kiln validator on Solana or a deposit into Ethereum's staking contract.
The client signs it in its own custody solution. Kiln never holds the signing keys to client funds.
Kiln's validators do the network's work. Rewards accrue on-chain, and Kiln's commission is deducted, in some products automatically by smart contract ³.

On Ethereum, Kiln runs a large validator set and provides staking contracts that platforms can brand as their own. Unstaking follows the Ethereum exit queue, which the protocol sets. Kiln cannot speed it up ⁵.

On Solana, staking uses native stake accounts. Each account has a "staker" authority, which picks the validator, and a "withdrawer" authority, which can move the funds. The 2025 incident turned on that distinction ⁸⁹.

Fees

Kiln charges a commission on staking rewards, not a fee on the principal ³. It does not publish a single rate. Pricing is negotiated per client, and the commission can differ by network and product. If you stake through a wallet or exchange that uses Kiln, the fee you see is set by that platform. It can include both Kiln's cut and the platform's own margin. Network transaction fees are paid separately.

The yield ranges on Kiln's homepage are indicative strategy ranges. Kiln's own footnote says rewards are set by protocol rules and are not guaranteed ¹.

Security, custody and slashing

Custody: Kiln is non-custodial by design. It builds transactions and runs validators, while signing stays with the client ¹⁸. That limits what Kiln alone can move. The 2025 incident showed the remaining risk: if a client signs a malicious transaction that Kiln returned, funds can still be lost.
Slashing: Kiln's site warns that slashing can cause partial loss of staked assets and states that Kiln offers slashing coverage ¹. The terms of that coverage were not available in the pages checked.
Controls: SOC 2 Type II certification (renewed in 2026, per Kiln's blog), smart-contract audits, penetration tests and bug bounties, according to the company ¹. After the 2025 incident Kiln added zero-trust access, hardened CI/CD and container security, tighter least-privilege isolation, continuous monitoring and validator-key protection, with Sygnia providing 24/7 monitoring ⁸.
Exit timing: Ethereum withdrawals depend on the network queue. During Kiln's 2025 validator exit, it put exits at 10–42 days plus up to 9 days for withdrawal ⁵.

Incident record

2 outcome unclear

An attacker used a compromised GitHub token of a Kiln engineer to reach Kiln's cloud systems and inject code into the Kiln Connect API

Aug 31 – Sep 8, 2025outcome unclear

The API returned a transaction that looked like a routine 975 SOL unstake but also handed withdraw authority over 150k+ SOL in stake accounts to the attacker. The client (SwissBorg) signed it on Aug 31. The accounts were drained on Sep 8

Outcome: Infrastructure compromise at Kiln; loss borne by one client; Kiln reports no other customer losses
Loss: ~192,600 SOL (~$41M) from SwissBorg's Solana Earn program
Recovered or reimbursed: SwissBorg pledged to cover users from its treasury. No recovery of the stolen SOL was reported in the sources checked

Source: theblock.co

As a precaution, Kiln exited all of its Ethereum validators, paused some services and rotated keys and credentials

Sep 9 – Oct 7, 2025outcome unclear

Services and new ETH validator deployments were re-enabled by Oct 7, 2025

Outcome: Precautionary disruption, resolved
Loss: No loss reported; delayed access to staked ETH (10–42 day exits plus withdrawal time)
Recovered or reimbursed: Services restored; root-cause report published Oct 7, 2025

Source: kiln.fi

Hacks in DefiLlama’s public database are also scored as the security record on the Kiln rating page.

Questions about Kiln

Does Kiln hold my crypto?

No. Kiln says it is non-custodial: assets stay with the client's custodian or wallet, and transactions are signed there, not by Kiln ¹⁸.

Can an individual stake directly with Kiln?

Kiln mainly serves businesses. Individuals usually reach Kiln through a wallet or exchange that has built it in. Kiln also offers a self-service dApp for ETH staking and restaking ¹.

How does Kiln make money?

It takes a commission on the staking rewards its validators generate and sells SDK and API access ³. Rates are not published.

Was Kiln hacked?

Yes, its infrastructure was breached in 2025. A stolen GitHub token gave an attacker access to Kiln's cloud systems, and the attacker altered the Kiln Connect API to return a malicious Solana transaction. One client, SwissBorg, lost about $41 million ⁶⁸. Kiln reported no other customer losses and published its root-cause findings on October 7, 2025 ⁸.

Why did Kiln unstake all its ETH in 2025?

Kiln exited its Ethereum validators as a precaution after the breach, while it rotated keys and hardened its systems. It said this did not affect other chains ⁵⁸.