This is yet another chance to invest in the cryptocurrency market. Given that it earns interest, staking your cryptocurrency is comparable to opening a savings or deposit account in a conventional banking system. You may make money off of your digital assets without even having to sell them by staking them. The introduction of proof-of-stake smart contracts created the possibility of staking cryptocurrency. The blockchain ecosystem now has a new mechanism for validating transactions and building new blocks, opening up new opportunities for profitable investments.
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Types of Staking
There is liquid staking as well as locked-up staking. Digital assets are locked up for a certain amount of time in exchange for a payout at the end of that time frame. This type of staking is known as locked-up staking.
The idea of “staking” digital assets has been improved with the introduction of “liquid staking,” which increases investor returns. With liquid staking, you may lock up your money while still having access to it for other uses, giving you the flexibility to earn interest or prizes.
Why liquid Staking may be considered better than Locked-up Staking
The idea of decentralized finance as a whole has the key benefit of allowing investors to experience greater satisfaction from the market because it does not impose restrictions on new concepts and inventions. The reasons listed below make liquid staking a promising area for investment in 2023.
- Liquid staking increases capital efficiency: While money is locked up, investors are unable to easily access it, missing out on potential investment opportunities elsewhere in the cryptocurrency market. Such investors with the locked-up asset will have to put up with the restriction of the opportunity cost of keeping their money locked up for a specific amount of time.
However, there is capital efficiency with liquid staking. This is due to the fact that investors can enter and exit staking contracts at any time. This is due to the fact that even while their coins are still up for grabs on a platform, they have staked them, still have access to them, and can use them for other purposes. As a result, opportunity cost is lessened and investors are protected.
- Liquid Staking lowers the risk of impermanent loss: Locked funds in a liquidity pool run the risk of impermanent loss because the crypto market is unstable. A temporary loss may result in a share’s value falling below the amount deposited in the liquidity pool, albeit this is only likely to last a short time because the token’s value is always liable to rise again. However, it is now simple to avoid due to the invention of liquid staking as one may instantly unstake their funds. Investors can, however, sell their shares and benefit if the price of the staked token rises. This is another another manner in which liquid staking boosts capital efficiency.
- Scalability of the yield token
Investors can boost their return on investment through liquid staking by reinvesting the extra tokens they have acquired on a platform. Lending out your tokens to generate interest is another option to increase your yield using this technique.
The Risk Involved
There is risk involved in the staking, as smart contracts can be exploited if there is some fault in the underlying code. It is safer to stick to platforms that have been around for a while. Even with that, there are no perfect platforms. However, you will need to trust a node operator to hold and manage your funds. In the case of failure to follow proper procedures, node operators can be penalized. This can result in “slashing,” which means that the platform will lose some of the tokens. And this will also affect the investors on the platform. Investors will have to take their share of the loss.