Guides

Create your first vault

🚧

Draft: this tutorial is a working draft pending product validation. The flow described below is reconstructed from the Add Vault wizard; the exact button labels, transaction count, and timing may differ from production. If you spot a discrepancy, please flag it to the docs maintainer.

This tutorial walks you all the way from "I just got a Northstake account" to "I have a vault funded with 32 ETH and a running validator." You'll touch the UI five times and sign three transactions. The path is intentionally linear: no decisions to make, no branches.

What you'll build

By the end of this lesson you'll have:

  • A dedicated stVault you own
  • A linked wallet that can sign on its behalf
  • 32 ETH funded into the vault
  • One validator created and running

You will not yet have:

  • A pool vault (those are SVM Pro and have additional setup)
  • A configured fee rate (the default is fine for this tutorial)
  • Webhooks or allowlists

Before you start

You need:

  • A Northstake account with login credentials
  • Access to an EVM wallet (e.g. a MetaMask account) holding at least 33 ETH on Ethereum mainnet: 32 to fund the validator, plus gas
  • 10 to 15 uninterrupted minutes

You don't need:

  • An SVM Pro entitlement
  • Programming experience
  • Knowledge of Lido v3 (though the primer is a good read after the tutorial)

Step 1: Sign in and pair your wallet

  1. Open https://staking.northstake.dk and sign in with your Northstake credentials.
  2. Click Linked Wallets in the left navigation.
  3. Click Link a wallet and follow the wallet-connection flow for your provider. Sign the proof-of-ownership message when prompted.
  4. The wallet now appears in the Linked Wallets list. Note its address: you'll pick it again in the next step.

Why this matters. Your linked wallet will own the vault. The vault contract grants DEFAULT_ADMIN_ROLE to whichever address you pick here, so make sure it's a wallet you control and can sign with later.

Step 2: Open the Add Vault wizard

  1. Click Vaults in the left navigation.
  2. Click Add Vault in the top-right of the page.

The wizard appears. It has five steps; you'll move through them in order.

Step 3: Configure the vault

  1. Vault type: leave Dedicated selected. Click Next.
  2. Owner address: pick the linked wallet from Step 1. Click Next.
  3. Node operator: pick Northstake. (Other providers are listed if your account has them enabled; for this tutorial, pick Northstake to keep the operator-side flow predictable.) Click Next.
  4. Review: confirm the configuration matches:
    • Type: Dedicated
    • Owner: your linked wallet
    • Node operator: Northstake

Click Create vault.

Step 4: Sign the deployment

Your wallet prompts you to sign the deployment transaction. Review the gas estimate, then approve.

When the transaction confirms (15–60 seconds), the wizard closes and your new vault appears in the Vaults list. Open it.

You're now on the Vault detail page. Open the Addresses tab to see four contract addresses:

  • Dashboard: your vault's control surface
  • Staking Vault: holds ETH and validator keys
  • Withdrawal Queue: handles future withdrawals
  • Timelock: present even on dedicated vaults

These are your vault. Bookmark this page.

Step 5: Fund the vault with 32 ETH

  1. On the vault detail page, open the Operations tab.
  2. Click Fund.
  3. Enter 32 ETH as the amount.
  4. Click Fund in the modal. Sign the transaction in your wallet.

Wait for confirmation. Once confirmed, the vault balance updates to 32 ETH.

Step 6: Create a validator

  1. Still on Operations, click Create Validator.
  2. The form pre-fills with your vault's parameters. Click Create.
  3. Sign the transaction.

When the transaction confirms, a new validator appears on the Validators tab with:

  • A validator index (assigned by the beacon chain)
  • A public key (the BLS pubkey)
  • pdgState: predeposited and status: pending

The validator is now reserved on-chain. Northstake (your selected operator) will submit the proof to advance it through proven, after which it can be activated.

What just happened

You deployed a Lido v3 stVault, funded it with 32 ETH, and reserved a validator through the Predeposit Guarantee (PDG) flow. The validator is currently in predeposited state: Northstake's operator infrastructure will prove the predeposit on-chain in the next few minutes to hours, and the validator will advance to proven.

On a standard SVM account, the operator handles the rest of activation as part of their normal flow. (On SVM Pro, you'd explicitly trigger Activate.)

Once activated, the validator joins the beacon-chain entry queue, then begins earning rewards.

What to do next

Now that you have a working vault, the natural next steps:

If you're interested in pool vaults, allowlists, or webhooks, see SVM vs SVM Pro.

Updated about 6 hours ago