Please excuse my ignorance but does validating/staking require special hardware/software?
I know absolutely zero about what it is you are doing but if I do know how LLCs/S-Corps are treated when it comes to taxes.
What you (probably) want to set up is an LLC not an S-Corp. An LLC is simpler and if you are only looking for favorable tax treatment they serve the same purpose.
You can elect to have your LLC treated as an S-Corp for tax purposes which a CPA can explain.
The main benefit I see for setting up an LLC is depreciation expense in your case (maybe).
I know whatever the hell you’re doing requires a computer. The computer you paid for with your own personal post tax money sometime in the past.
If you had a LLC the LLC could have bought it and your CPA would be depreciating the machine over the course of its useful life saving you on taxes. The benefit of an LLC/S-Corp is you have the ability to spend pre tax dollars and only pay taxes on what is left over. If you don’t have an LLC/S-Corp all your expenses are more expensive because they are post tax.
A simple example would be this.
You will earn $10,000 in validator/staking income this year. And you expect to pay 25% taxes on that income. $2500.
You set up an LLC to do this work. You decide that while your checking on your setup your back hurts and you need a new office chair. If you have an LLC the office chair can be purchased by the LLC for your use when acting as sole employee of your Validator LLC. The IRS would expect you to use it only for business purposes but you can decide if you only sit in the chair during regular business hours or if you stretch the rules and use it whenever you feel like it.
This chair costs $100. Your PL now looks like this.
$10k income - $100 expenses = taxable income of $9,900. At 25% you’ll owe $2475 in taxes. You’ve saved $25 in taxes. You didn’t make any extra money having an LLC but if you look at the total change in your net worth the LLC is beneficial.
People abuse this system but there are plenty of benefits to doing it completely above board and IRS complaint.
I’d talk to a CPA and figure out what is best for you. Depending on how large of numbers we are talking about it may make sense to deal with the bookkeeping and extra filing expenses of having an LLC/S-Corp or maybe it doesn’t.