Lorien Gabel on proof of stake
From Lorien Gabel and Benjamin Thalman (Figment) on Staking and the Ethereum Shanghai Upgrade (EP.413) · · On The Brink with Castle Island
“We had a theory that proof of stake was going to be the underlying consensus mechanism for blockchains. For everything else, proof of stake was going to essentially run the underlying infrastructure.”
On , Lorien Gabel, CEO & Co-Founder at Figment, spoke about proof of stake during Lorien Gabel and Benjamin Thalman (Figment) on Staking and the Ethereum Shanghai Upgrade (EP.413) on On The Brink with Castle Island.
About Lorien Gabel
Lorien Gabel, co-founder and CEO of Figment, has been discussing the growing institutional adoption of staking and the evolving regulatory landscape in the United States. In 2025, he stated that the US has "fallen behind on a new technology primarily because of regulatory ineffectiveness," but expressed optimism that the new SEC is "interested to learn" and that a useful framework would be in place within three to six months. Gabel noted that the North American market had been "frozen relatively flat" for years due to regulatory reasons, but described a "pretty positive shift" in 2025, partly driven by applications from firms like BlackRock and Fidelity to add staking to their ETH ETFs. Gabel has described staking as "the safest thing you can do with your crypto" and "basically the 10-year treasury rate of crypto," arguing that it carries no counterparty risk. He predicted that within five years, 80% of institutional investors would have staking exposure as a default portfolio component, and that "every brokerage and bank that has a dollar sign for stocks is going to have a crypto symbol eventually." Gabel also discussed the importance of distribution, stating that Figment treats custodians and exchanges as clients who resell its services, and noted that the company runs approximately 4-5% of Ethereum's infrastructure and 7-8% of Solana's.