Point your validator at the Coffer

Everything a Coffer does rests on one link, your validator’s withdrawal credentials point at the Coffer’s address. Withdrawals authenticate against the address embedded in the credentials, so any mismatch makes the stake unreachable for the Coffer. The address is final once set on the execution layer, which is why this page exists.

The recommended path, fresh keys and a direct 0x02 deposit

Take the predicted address from step 2 of the wizard, Your Coffer address, and generate your validator keys with the ethstaker deposit CLI, setting that address as the withdrawal address with 0x02 compounding credentials. Then deposit between 32 and 2048 ETH to the deposit contract. The app’s own words on the lifecycle screen, under “Set your withdrawal credentials”, “Deposit 32 to 2048 ETH to your validator using 0x02 compounding credentials that point to this Coffer. Once the beacon chain picks it up, the Coffer goes live and you can issue bonds.”

The sequence does not matter. You can deposit first and deploy after, or deploy first and deposit after, the predicted address is the same either way as long as the owner and the public key match.

The other two paths

A validator with 0x00 credentials performs the one time change to 0x01 with the Coffer as the address, then converts to 0x02 through the app. Until the change lands the Coffer reads Missing Credentials, its lifecycle screen stops at the second rung, and none of the validator’s stake counts as its backing. A validator whose 0x01 credentials already point somewhere else cannot be moved and needs fresh keys, see Before you create a Coffer.

Why a mismatch is unrecoverable

An execution layer withdrawal address can never be changed. If your credentials point anywhere but the Coffer, the Coffer can never withdraw the stake, and no bond sold on that Coffer is backed by it. The app surfaces this as a setup problem, and the only fix is a new Coffer with keys that point at it.

How long the deposit takes

A deposit shows as pending on the beacon chain for at least two epochs, about thirteen minutes, and the chain admits a limited amount of deposit value per epoch, so under load it can sit visibly pending for longer. The app counts a deposit as evidence for your Coffer only when it happened within one day before the Coffer’s creation, an older deposit already made a validator or was dropped. The lifecycle screen tracks all of it, “Beacon chain picks it up, usually a few hours.”