picture: Figment official website
TORONTO — Figment, an institutional staking infrastructure provider, said it has achieved Full Certification under the Node Operator Risk Standard (NORS) for Ethereum—a milestone the company is positioning as a new benchmark for how institutions evaluate node operators.
NORS is described as an independent, industry-recognized framework designed to assess node operators across three pillars institutions care about most: security, operational resilience, and governance. Figment also says it is the first entity in North America and Europe to successfully complete the NORS certification process.
“Institutional staking requires more than strong performance claims — it requires objective, independently validated operational excellence,”
said Annalea Sanders, Figment’s Chief Operating & Information Security Officer.
She added that Full NORS Certification reflects evidence-based verification that the company’s systems, controls, and governance processes meet enterprise expectations.
What NORS actually measures
The Node Operator Risk Standard is positioned as the first certification framework built specifically for Ethereum node operator risk management—a niche that traditional security certifications don’t fully cover.
According to the announcement, NORS sets enterprise-grade criteria across critical areas of validator operations, including:
- Slashing prevention
- Validator diversity
- Key management practices
- Operational security and resilience
The key distinction: NORS isn’t meant to be a “trust me” badge. The program requires operators to demonstrate real-world operating procedures through audited documentation, technical evidence, and validated controls—rather than relying on self-attested best practices.
The standard was developed collaboratively by a group of industry leaders and risk experts, with the stated goal of improving transparency and trust in staking infrastructure.
Chris Matta, CEO at Liquid Collective, said NORS was created to give institutions a consistent, independently validated framework for assessing staking infrastructure—and pointed to Figment’s Full Certification as evidence of mature controls and rigorous operational practices.
Why Figment pursued it now
The company’s message is straightforward: institutions have long had to navigate a messy landscape of operational claims, where comparing one staking provider to another can feel like comparing different rulebooks.
Figment says NORS helps solve that by introducing a unified, evidence-based control framework using a standardized Risk Control Matrix (RCM)—meant to give institutional teams a clearer, more comparable view of node operator risk.
Full NORS Certification, Figment added, is also meant to signal operational maturity in handling real-world staking risks at scale, including:
- Relay failures
- MEV complexity
- Validator churn
- Slashing events
Part of a broader compliance and assurance stack
Figment framed NORS as another layer in its wider compliance posture. The company says its assurance program includes:
SOC 1 Type I (Rewards Reporting) — extended this year to staking rewards operations
SOC 2 Type II — multi-year audited program for infrastructure and services
ISO 27001 — information security standard covering its ISMS
OFAC-compliant MEV relays — enabling MEV-optimized performance with sanctions-screening controls
Together, the company says these standards provide layered assurance across infrastructure, governance, and institutional servicing.
What’s next
Figment’s broader bet is that staking is moving from “crypto-native” infrastructure into a more institutional phase—where operational proof, repeatable controls, and independent validation become table stakes for vendor approval.
Conclusion: why this is useful for crypto (and specifically institutional staking)
This matters because staking is increasingly becoming institutional infrastructure, and infrastructure lives or dies on trust and repeatability.
If NORS adoption grows, it can:
- Speed up institutional onboarding by giving risk teams a clearer, standardized due-diligence framework
- Reduce operational uncertainty around core staking risks (like key management and slashing controls)
- Make providers easier to compare, shifting the market away from marketing claims and toward verifiable controls
- Raise the floor for Ethereum validator operations, improving the reliability and professionalism of staking across the ecosystem
In short: certifications like NORS won’t change Ethereum’s consensus rules—but they can change how confidently large institutions participate in staking at scale.