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Anyone who’s been involved with the cryptocurrency market for some time must have come across the term ‘Staking’. In the most basic sense, staking is quite similar to mining, but for proof of stake consensus-based blockchains. Staking is a crucial component for several current and numerous other blockchains that will be emerging in the future. This is because this entails a much less resource-intensive process when it comes to attaining consensus.

Proof of Stake (PoS)

Proof of stake is a consensus mechanism that enables participants to stake their cryptocurrencies. Then, at random intervals, it chooses one of them to have the authority to authenticate the next block. The likelihood of being chosen varies with the number of coins staked. If you have a greater number of coins locked up, your chances increase.

Proof of stake was first introduced by Sunny King and Scott Nadal in their Peercoin 2012 paper. They were the first to define and apply this concept for the Peercoin cryptocurrency project (PPC). For a time, the blockchain utilized a PoW/PoS hybrid model.

The Proof of Work protocol’s ability to solve hash problems is required for the development of the blocks. On the other hand, Proof of Stake is based on the total number of staking coins held by the participants.

Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS)

Entrepreneur Daniel Larmier introduced an upgraded and modified version of PoS. This is referred to as Delegated Proof of stake (DPoS). The first network to use this protocol was Bitshares. When using DPoS, all of the network’s crypto holdings are transformed into votes. In addition, these votes are used to elect trusted delegates.

The delegates verify and validate the network’s normal operation as well as all transactions. Your vote has more weight if you have a larger stake. Stakeholders receive a regular reward for holding onto their crypto.

DPoS boosts network capacity by speeding up the transaction processing time. It’s possible because the DPoS model requires fewer nodes to validate a transaction, which means consensus can be reached considerably faster. However, the use of Delegate Proof of Stake increases centralization.

Staking: Introduction

As a general term, staking refers to the act of committing one’s cryptocurrency holdings in exchange for an incentive. By locking up tokens, users can contribute to the network’s security via staking. As a result, native tokens are awarded to users for helping secure the network.

Rewards increase in direct proportion to your pledged crypto-assets. Because the incentives are delivered on-chain, earning them is a completely automated procedure. All that’s required of you is that you stake them. In other words, your crypto-assets are earning money when you’re not even paying attention!

Obviously, the main purpose behind staking is to protect the network. Because of this, the network becomes increasingly secure with each new wallet that joins the pool. Verifying a transaction earns you a reward that serves as a payment for your efforts in return for your time and effort. Consequently, the network now has an inherent “economic worth” because of the possibility of gaining more of the underlying asset.

Staking Rewards

Each time a block is validated, new tokens are produced and distributed as staking rewards. You can receive rewards on your staked assets with Proof-of-Stake (PoS) assets like Solana and Tezos. There are two different kinds of rewards distributed.

• Staking rewards/inflationary rewards
• Transaction fees

Staking rewards

To validate a block of transactions, you stake your crypto-assets with a PoS node (a computer running the protocol stack). If the node to which you’ve delegated successfully signs or attests blocks, you’ll earn staking rewards, which will increase your net crypto-assets. If your node becomes unresponsive or malicious (by double-signing), a portion of the node’s assets may be slashed or destroyed.

Thus, the staking rewards serve as an incentive for these nodes to carry out the process of sorting transactions, verifying them, collecting them in a block, and finally validating the block. When these rewards are newly generated, they are referred to as inflationary incentives.

Each time a block is validated, fresh cryptocurrency tokens are produced and distributed as staking rewards!

Transaction Fee

In addition to the staking benefits, each transaction carries a tiny fee, which enables the node to prioritize the transactions to be included in the block. The node also receives the accumulated fees from the underlying transactions.

A cryptocurrency is nothing more than a series of transactions. These transactions may have a variety of meanings depending on the protocol. They range from token transfers to the execution of smart contracts. Regardless of the transaction types, the unifying thread is that these transactions are always organized and combined into a new block in order for all nodes in a network to agree on the network’s state.

Each transaction at a centralized institution, such as a bank, can be checked by the central authority (bank’s central server). However, because the crypto world lacks centralized authority, these blocks must be verified and then validated by the network’s decentralized nodes. These nodes are referred to in a variety of ways – validators, bakers, and so on. Their proof-of-work network counterparts are referred to as miners!

Participating in Staking

When it comes to PoS, your stake is like your vote. Staking appears to be a somewhat beneficial investing mechanism for anyone with idle funds in a digital wallet or ledger. When staking, one can take on two roles.

Validation — Suitable for business and technical aficionados.

Delegation — Suitable for the majority of individual cryptocurrency investors

Individuals can reap the benefits of staking through delegation.

For many people, owning a large amount of tokens for a single currency or maintaining validation infrastructure may not seem worthwhile. Fortunately, the majority of PoS protocols anticipate this issue and integrate mechanisms that allow asset holders to stake their tokens with a validator that is not run by them.

Delegation is a term that refers to the procedure of staking your assets with a validator without actually transferring them your tokens.

Delegating your assets involves allowing them to count against a validator’s stake in exchange for a piece of the reward received. In practice, a delegator deposits tokens into a smart contract naming the validator whose network he/she wishes to strengthen in the network. As a result, the rewards earned throughout the validation process rise. However, the rewards are automatically distributed between the validator and the delegator rather than simply compensating the validator.

Risks Involved in Staking

Due to the fact that staking has become a new trend in the cryptocurrency sector, it is necessary to discuss some of the risks associated with cryptocurrency staking.

Staking coins in a bound wallet has one disadvantage: it exposes you to the risk of decreased liquidity. POS projects are generally subject to a lock-up period of between 20 days and a few months. Even if you redeem the tokens, you will be unable to trade them during the lock-up period, and the token price may see significant swings. You will pay opportunity costs if you are unable to engage in the transaction on time.

This may not be a problem if the token’s value increases, but it can result in losses if the price decreases. The pledged amount may not be sufficient to compensate for price depreciation during a bear market.

Conclusion

To summarise, staking is an innovative and unique investment strategy. It is stable enough to compete with traditional ones. It outperforms them in terms of asset growth potential.

Proof of Stake and staking expands the pool of participants in the consensus and governance of blockchains. Additionally, it is regarded as a simple method of earning passive income just by holding coins.

Disclaimer: Cryptocurrency is not a legal tender and is currently unregulated. Kindly ensure that you undertake sufficient risk assessment when trading cryptocurrencies as they are often subject to high price volatility. The information provided in this section doesn't represent any investment advice or WazirX's official position. WazirX reserves the right in its sole discretion to amend or change this blog post at any time and for any reasons without prior notice.