Digital asset exchange Kraken has announced that it will soon be launching staking support for Tezos (XTZ), one of the most popular Proof-of-Stake (PoS) cryptoassets.
Tezos is a general-purpose open source blockchain project that can “evolve by upgrading itself.”
Here are the main ideas in Tezos:
- Self-Amendment. This means Tezos can upgrade itself without needing a hard fork.
- On-Chain Governance. The Tezos protocol is governed by the stakeholders.
- Decentralized Innovation. A proposed amendment may include payment to those involved in improving the core protocol.
- Smart Contracts and Formal Verification. Tezos allows the creation of smart contracts and decentralized applications (DApps).
- A Delegated Proof-of-Stake (DPoS) consensus mechanism.
Here is how staking works in Tezos…
XTZ token holders take part in the consensus process by staking (i.e. locking up) — which in Tezos land is called “staking” — their tokens for the right to validate blocks. XTZ holders may delegate their tokens to bakers whilst retaining ownership of the tokens.
Bakers receive block rewards, the substantial portion of which are distributed to those XTZ token holders that delegated their tokens to them. This means that even if you do not hold enough XTZ to become a full baker you can still take part in the block validation/reward process.
Kraken announced on Wednesday (December 11) that it will be launching its new “best-in-class staking service” on Friday (December 13), and it listed the following as benefits of using this service:
- you can earn 6% in XTZ staking rewards instantly, with “no waiting or lockup periods”
- XTZ staking rewards are distributed every Monday and Thursday
According to CryptoCompare, Tezos is currently trading at $1.534, up 1.93% in the past 24-hour period, which means that it is one of the very few cryptoassets in the top 20 to be in the green today:
Featured Image Courtesy of Kraken
