Some quick research on running an Ethereum validator node and staking 32 ETH.
There are a ton of ways to acquire and setup the node. The easiest and most cost effective I could find was configuring this via the AWS marketplace for $450 a year: AWS Marketplace: Ethereum Geth Node Pre-synced
Coinbase and Kraken charge between 10% and 15% for staking services.
Annual reward for 32 ETH = is 2.4830 which is about $2,000 (Oct 30th 2022).
My cost when running a node ends up being 23% with these numbers. Thus it really only starts to make sense to run my own node if staking over 64 ETH. Another way to look at it, if ETH doubles in price, it will start to make sense to run my own node with only 32 ETH.
Now we have a threshold for when it makes sense to run by own node by the numbers. The alternative is to use Coinbase or Kraken which will take very little time to start and no time to maintain. When I run my own node, it will be a pain to be paying costs in fiat and earning in crypto. It is also takes time and effort to setup and maintain the node, even though it is greatly minimized by AWS. My sense is that running my own node only makes sense if and when it will earn an additional $400 a year in profit.
The critical thing to keep in mind is that there is currently no way to "unstake" your ETH. So this decision will stick until unstaking is supported at some point in the future.
In the meantime, I am looking at staking with Ledger and Lido DApp Staking with Ethereum (ETH) - Earn money while holding crypto assets | Ledger. This is interesting to me because it is a DApp, I get to pick the validator, and it gives you stETh.
References:
Ethereum Staking Calculator: Best ETH Staking Rewards & Pools
Another option for deploying your own node: Deploy your own ETH node in minutes
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