Kiln is an enterprise-grade staking platform that provides infrastructure for institutions and individuals to earn rewards on their digital assets. The company operates as a staking aggregator, offering Staking-as-a-Service through a suite of APIs, widgets, and applications designed to simplify access to yield-generating opportunities across numerous blockchain protocols. [1] [2]
Kiln’s core mission is to provide easy access to blockchain protocols, enabling users to secure networks and participate in consensus mechanisms with their cryptocurrencies in exchange for rewards. The company positions itself as a key infrastructure provider in the digital asset space, with a slogan, "Democratising value creation in digital assets." Its primary business model is serving as an aggregator and enabler, offering a platform and tools for institutional clients like custodians, wallets, exchanges, and asset managers to integrate "Earn" functionalities directly into their own products. [4]
The platform is designed to be chain-agnostic, supporting over 30 Proof-of-Stake (PoS) networks. By 2025, the company reported having over $18 billion in delegated assets under management. [3] Kiln's strategy evolved from being a direct operator of staking infrastructure to becoming a neutral marketplace, aiming to provide a comprehensive platform for accessing services from various staking operators and protocols rather than competing with them. [2]
To serve its institutional clientele, Kiln achieved SOC 2 Type II compliance, a certification for security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality, and privacy. The company also offers slashing coverage to mitigate financial penalties for validator misbehavior or downtime, a key risk in staking. [3] [4] [1]
Kiln was founded in 2018 by Laszlo Szabo, Thomas de Phuoc, and Ernest Oppetit, with its headquarters in Paris, France. [2]
Between 2021 and 2023, the company's primary focus was on developing and providing staking infrastructure and APIs for various blockchain networks. Following 2023, Kiln's strategy expanded to build a broader institutional infrastructure for on-chain asset management, aligning with industry growth in areas like tokenized stablecoins and Real-World Assets (RWAs). [3]
In September 2025, a vulnerability in a Kiln-provided API was exploited, resulting in a financial loss of approximately $40 million in Solana (SOL) tokens from one of its partners, SwissBorg.
In response to the exploit, on September 10, 2025, Kiln initiated a precautionary "orderly exit" from all its remaining managed Ethereum validator nodes to safeguard customer assets from potential further vulnerabilities. The company estimated the exit process would take between 10 and 42 days, during which the validators would continue to earn rewards. Withdrawals initiated following the incident were projected to take up to nine days to process. [5]
Kiln Connect: A comprehensive SDK and API suite.
Kiln Widget: A no-code, embeddable component that allows partners to create and manage an "Earn" section within their own applications or websites with minimal development effort.
These tools are central to Kiln's aggregator model, allowing a wide range of companies to offer staking to their users. [1] [4]
Kiln is involved in the emerging field of Bitcoin staking, which enables Bitcoin (BTC) to be used to secure other blockchain ecosystems. This functions differently from traditional PoS staking and is intended to "bootstrap additional protocols' economic security by tapping into the massive idle supply" of Bitcoin. The platform supports implementations such as Babylon, Core, and Stacks. Kiln has also hosted a podcast series, "Kiln BTC Staking Rendez-Vous," to discuss the developing technologies in this area. [4] [2]
Kiln’s business model relies on a wide network of integrations and partnerships with institutional entities.
Kiln supports Bitcoin staking through integrations with institutional custody partners, including Fireblocks, Anchorage Digital, and Fordefi. [3] [5] [2] [4]