Today, Moonstake is pleased to announce we have secured a staking pool integration grant from the DAO-governed SSV Network to integrate ETH staking on the Moonstake Wallet. Moonstake will be integrating SSV’s unique architecture to bolster Ethereum decentralization and ensure Moonstake’s validator infrastructure is as robust as possible. This will enable a seamless decentralized ETH staking experience for global users, and Moonstake and SSV will also work together to promote our ecosystems through this collaboration.

The ssv.network Grants Program is a community-led initiative to fund development teams building decentralized staking applications and services with the intent of promoting and accelerating development and innovation by developers building on top of the network. Proposals to the grant are evaluated on the technical design of the project, the overall quality of the team and its community, and more. Moonstake is thrilled to join the SSV Network Grants Program as a verified top 10 staking provider worldwide and soon support ETH staking.

As of 15 September 2022, Ethereum has officially become a Proof of Stake blockchain and the demand for ETH staking is higher than ever. Currently, ETH holders must have 32 ETH and build their own validator infrastructure in order to stake, which requires a high level of technical expertise and maintain a costly infrastructure. Alternatively, non-tech users could stake their ETH by relying on a custodian staking-provider service or centralized exchange. Moonstake and SSV aim to address this issue by providing users with a non-custodial ETH staking solution via Moonstake Wallet using SSV’s innovative technological infrastructure. We are proud to uphold our commitment of providing the best staking experience for users worldwide, as well as to finally take the next big step in our promised support plan for the Ethereum Merge and PoS ETH.

Mitsuru Tezuka, Founder at Moonstake, says:

“Moonstake is happy to have received this grant from the SSV Network and partner up for ETH staking integration. The demand for ETH staking is higher than ever, yet users can only rely on custodial solutions at the moment which takes away from the decentralized experience of crypto and could potentially lead to many security risks. As a verified top 10 staking provider worldwide, we hope to be able to bring even more value to crypto users worldwide by providing a seamless ETH staking experience using SSV’s robust technology. We look forward to growing the Moonstake, SSV, and Ethereum staking ecosystems together, as well as promoting the staking industry as a whole through this great partnership.”

Moonstake started the staking business in 2020 with the aim to create the largest staking network in Asia. Since then, we have developed the most user-friendly Web Wallet and Mobile Wallet (iOS / Android) with support for over 2000 cryptocurrencies. After a full-scale operation launched in August 2020, Moonstake’s total staking assets have grown rapidly to reach $1 Billion, allowing Moonstake to become one of the top 10 staking providers globally. Currently, Moonstake supports 17 leading PoS assets including Cosmos, IRISnet, Ontology, Harmony, Tezos, Cardano, Qtum, Polkadot, Quras, Centrality, Orbs (Ethereum and Polygon), IOST, TRON, Shiden, FIO, Everscale, and Oasis. Proof of Stake ETH will be the 18th staking coin supported by Moonstake once technical integration is completed.

SSV is a fully decentralized open Ethereum staking infrastructure. It provides an open architecture for anyone who wants to run an Ethereum validator; from individual users to staking pools and large institutional staking services. The SSV Network aims to address the main concerns faced with Ethereum staking which include: custody and management of private keys, liveliness and redundancy, single point of failure, security and encryption, as well as decentralization and network governance.

Follow us on Twitter and Telegram for the latest updates on Moonstake news!

About Moonstake

Moonstake is the world’s leading staking service provider that develops and operates decentralized wallet services for businesses and individuals.

Since its launch in April 2020, Moonstake has partnered with 27 leading platform providers, including Cardano’s constituent Emurgo, developer of the Polkadot-connected blockchain Astar Network Stake Technologies, and the TRON Network with over 50 million users. In May 2021, Moonstake further enhanced its corporate credibility by becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of OIO Holdings Limited, a company listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange.

Using blockchain technology, Moonstake aims to progress toward a world where anyone can easily make use of highly secure and reliable digital asset management tools.

https://www.moonstake.io/     

About Moonstake’s staking business

For the staking industry, which has grown into a 630-billion dollar market as of September 2021, Moonstake provides a decentralized staking service that does not require user deposits, and supports nodes around the world in addition to its own validator nodes. Moonstake currently supports the staking of 17 blockchains. With a total staking assets of 1.8 billion USD and a global user base, the company ranked third out of more than 10,000 providers worldwide in June of the same year.

About SSV Network

Secret Shared Validators (SSV) is the first secure and robust way to split an Ethereum validator key between non-trusting nodes. The nodes do not need to trust each other to carry out their validator duties, and a certain number can be offline without affecting validator performance. The result is a reliable, decentralized, secure infrastructure for Ethereum staking. 

SSV Network is the decentralized staking infrastructure running the SSV protocol that enables the distributed operation of an Ethereum validator. It is also a reusable and scalable ETH staking infrastructure developers can use to build new staking apps and deploy them quickly and easily.

https://ssv.network/

We are pleased to announce that we have strengthened our management with the appointment of CMO Pietro Curto.

Pietro is a true veteran in digital marketing, with over 10 years of professional work in key areas such as acquisition, customer relationship management, digital strategies for retail customers, and operations. He also possesses deep expertise in regulated markets, having led FTSE-listed companies such as Entain. With years of experience in such fast-paced international digital markets, Pietro was a perfect fit for the rapidly growing crypto market when he first entered in 2021 as the Head of Marketing Operations for the leading global crypto exchange BitMEX. And now, Moonstake is happy to welcome Pietro as our CMO.

Currently, we are expanding our scope with the launch of the MoonWealth platform as a simple and seamless entry point for crypto beginners to complement the Moonstake staking platform that serves more experienced users. We believe that Pietro’s addition to our management team will be pivotal in propelling the growth and success of Moonstake as a whole to further heights.

In welcoming Pietro to the Moonstake executive board, Mitsuru Tezuka, Moonstake Founder, said: 

“Since our launch in 2020, Moonstake has quickly grown to become a top 10 staking provider and earned the trust of users, businesses, and partners worldwide. Today, we are continuing to expand our operations to cover the needs of more customers and realize our aim of becoming the largest staking pool network in Asia. I have no doubt that Pietro’s deep experience and expertise as well as proven leadership will be of great value to help us realize Moonstake’s ambitions and reach across the globe.”

Regarding his appointment as CMO, Pietro said:  

“I am honored and excited to be appointed as the CMO of Moonstake. Moonstake’s mission is an ambitious one, to create the largest staking pool in Asia that is an active environment for asset holders. And now it is also working towards lowering the entry barrier of the crypto market to beginners. I am confident that together, we will realize all of these ambitions and become a trusted and widely recommended platform for crypto users of any experience level.”

Follow us on Twitter and Telegram for the latest updates on Moonstake news!

About Moonstake

Moonstake is the world’s leading staking service provider that develops and operates decentralized wallet services for businesses and individuals.

Since its launch in April 2020, Moonstake has partnered with 27 leading platform providers, including Cardano’s constituent Emurgo, developer of the Polkadot-connected blockchain Astar Network Stake Technologies, and the TRON Network with over 50 million users. In May 2021, Moonstake further enhanced its corporate credibility by becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of OIO Holdings Limited, a company listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange.

Using blockchain technology, Moonstake aims to progress toward a world where anyone can easily make use of highly secure and reliable digital asset management tools.

https://www.moonstake.io/       

About Moonstake’s staking business

For the staking industry, which has grown into a 630-billion dollar market as of September 2021, Moonstake provides a decentralized staking service that does not require user deposits, and supports nodes around the world in addition to its own validator nodes. Moonstake currently supports the staking of 18 blockchains. With a total staking assets of 1.8 billion USD and a global user base, the company ranked third out of more than 10,000 providers worldwide in June of the same year.

Welcome to this edition of 101 article exploring one of the staking coins on Moonstake. This time, we’ll be looking at Solana and its native coin SOL, which has grown rapidly since its inception just a few years ago and is now one of the most popular cryptocurrencies on the market, referred to by many crypto experts as one of the “Ethereum killers”. 

What Makes Solana Unique?

Originally launched in 2020, Solana is a layer-1 blockchain that focuses on scalability, speed, cost minimization, and energy efficiency. Solana’s innovative infrastructure maintains a single global state between different ecosystems as the network scales, eliminating the need to rely on fragmented layer-2 systems or sharded chains. 

Most notably, Solana is committed to providing a fast and low-cost experience to both users and developers. It promises an admirable sub 0.01 USD transaction fee and merely 0.001 seconds in transaction processing time. Even after the transition to Proof of Stake (PoS), transaction cost and speed remains a concern amongst Ethereum users. Therefore, Ethereum rivals are focused on solving these issues, and Solana stands out as one of the most competitive alternatives to the world’s second largest blockchain.

For the consensus algorithm, Solana implements an innovative hybrid model of PoS that combines a unique timestamp-based Proof of History (PoH) algorithm with a high-speed synchronization system. This allows transactions to be validated much faster, reducing the load of the Solana network and increasing its bandwidth, in other words, scalability. 

How Did Solana Become Popular?

Solana saw a meteoric rise in value in fall 2021 due to a boom in NFT sales and widespread awareness of its utilities, most notably after the launch of the Wormhole 2.0 update that heightened interoperability with other high-value blockchains. The project also supports an array of DeFi platforms as well as NFT marketplaces. 

Thanks to the network’s high efficiency in speed, costs, and capacity, as well as an enticing staking ecosystem, Solana has become one of the most popular blockchains for DApp developers and staking users. It now sits in the ranking of the top 10 cryptocurrencies in terms of market capitalization. 

Solana’s Technical Milestones and Why Moonstake Supports SOL

At Moonstake, we work to support the most demanded coins on the market. Here are some key milestones of Solana so far:

• From 2018 – 2019, Solana raised over 20 million for the SOL token sale to investors, despite the relatively bearish market situation after the 2017 crypto bubble.
• During the NFT craze in 2021, Solana was home to the popular Degenerate Ape Academy NFT, a collection of 10,000 apes which sold out in less than 10 minutes.
• By August 2021, over 400 projects have been built on Solana, just a little over a year since its launch. Many DeFi projects are building on Solana to take advantage of its powerful and cost-effective infrastructure.
• In September 2021, Solana launched its Wormhole 2.0 protocol that enabled the transfer of digital assets between ERC-20 and SPL blockchains. This is believed to be one of the main factors that contributed to the rise of Solana. 
• Currently, Solana has over 3,400 validators to help secure and decentralize the network and is currently competing with other emerging Ethereum competitors such as Polygon and Polkadot. It has been stably sitting at rank #10 on Coinmarketcap.

We can see that SOL is a high-demand coin and Solana network is an esteemed blockchain project with active, constant development and support both from its creators and lively developer community. This makes SOL a great and strategic addition to the lineup of PoS coins supported by Moonstake and we are working hard to bring SOL staking to you very soon.

How SOL Staking Works

On Solana, tokens in a stake account must be delegated to a validator. A single stake account can only be delegated to a single validator at any time, so if you want to delegate to different validators you will need to split your tokens between multiple stake accounts.

To stake SOL tokens, you must use a wallet that supports staking. SOL tokens in your wallet must first be moved into a stake account. You can create as many stake accounts as you like, and deposit as much or as little SOL into each stake account as you want. Each new stake account has a unique address, and a single wallet can manage or “authorize” many different stake accounts.

How To Get Rewards for SOL Staking

SOL staking has historically yielded around 6% APY, though as usual this number will fluctuate depending on network activity. Staking rewards are computed and issued once per epoch which is approximately 2 days. However, to begin earning rewards, you must first wait for two epochs (around 4 days). 

Rewards accrued in a given epoch are issued to all validators and delegators in the first block of the following epoch. Rewards are issued once per epoch and deposited into the stake account that earned them. 

Stake rewards are automatically re-delegated as active stake. If the rewards due to a validator or one of their stakes is less than one lamport for a given epoch, reward issuance is deferred until the next epoch in which both would receive at least one lamport. A lamport is a fractional native token with the value of 0.000000001 SOL.

How SOL Unstaking Works

Tokens can only be withdrawn from a stake account when they are not currently delegated. When a stake account is first un-delegated, it is considered “deactivating” or “cooling down”. Tokens may not be withdrawn from the account until some or all of them have finished deactivating and are considered “inactive” and therefore no longer earning any potential staking rewards. 

Once the tokens in a stake account are inactive, they can be withdrawn back to your main wallet address or to another address immediately. Tokens in a stake account with a lockup may not be withdrawn until the lockup expires, regardless of the delegation state of that account. Once the lockup expires, undelegated tokens may be withdrawn immediately. There is no action required by the account holder to specifically unlock the account.

Reference: 

https://solana.com/ 

https://docs.solana.com/ 

https://solana.com/news/validator-health-report-august-2022 

Moonstake is pleased to announce we are working with long-time strategic partner RockX to integrate Solana staking. Through this collaborative effort, Moonstake is leveraging RockX Solana validator to bring its users access to the Solana staking ecosystem so they can start earning from staking SOL. Together, Moonstake and RockX will accelerate the growth of Solana in the blockchain industry through staking. Since January 2021, Moonstake has also been working with RockX to support the Polkadot staking ecosystem. Today, Moonstake is a recognized top 10 staking providers in the world and a Verified Provider of the VPP family of the leading staking data aggregator, Staking Rewards. RockX is also a top 13 staking provider globally and also a Verified Provider of Staking Reward’s program.

Moonstake started the staking business last year with the aim to create the largest staking network in Asia. Since then, we have developed the most user-friendly Web Wallet and Mobile Wallet (iOS / Android) with support for over 2000 cryptocurrencies. After a full-scale operation launched in August 2020, Moonstake’s total staking assets have grown rapidly to reach $1 Billion. After Cosmos, IRISnet, Ontology, Harmony, Tezos, Cardano, Qtum, Polkadot, Quras, Centrality, Orbs (on Ethereum and Polygon), IOST, TRON, Shiden, FIO, EVER, and ROSE, the highly demanded SOL will become the 18th staking coin available on Moonstake. 

RockX is a digital assets platform that offers risk-adjusted crypto investment for the masses and allows users to compound their crypto holdings through mining, staking, and other DeFi products. It is currently a leading node operator for popular blockchains like Polkadot, Solana, and Avalanche. Recently, RockX sponsored the global hackathon Solana Summer Camp through the explorer SolanaFM to enable developers of every level to get a headstart in the Web 3.0 space by developing with one of the world’s biggest blockchain, Solana. This event successfully took place from July to August 2022 and had up to 5 million USD in global prizes and seed funding.

Solana is a layer-1 blockchain that focuses on scalability, speed, cost minimization, and energy-efficiency. It uses a hybrid model of Proof of Stake (PoS) that combines a unique timestamp-based Proof of History (PoH) algorithm with a high-speed synchronization system. This lets Solana provide a high speed and low-cost experience to both users and developers, promising less than 0.01 USD for transaction fee and 0.001 seconds in transaction time. Thanks to these innovations, Solana has become one of the most popular blockchains for DApp developers and staking users. In fact, the SOL coin now sits in the ranking of the top 10 cryptocurrencies in terms of market capitalization.

Mitsuru Tezuka, Founder at Moonstake says:

“We are very pleased to once again work together with partner RockX, one of Solana’s world leading node operators. Soon, users of Moonstake can access staking of SOL using RockX’s validator, just like before for DOT staking. By combining the market leading platforms of Moonstake and RockX, we are confident that we can support the ever-growing Solana ecosystem together, just like what we have been doing for the Polkadot ecosystem.”

Zhuling Chen, CEO at RockX says:

“We are pleased to be partnering with Moonstake who is a top-10 staking provider and a user-friendly wallet. I am very happy to be extending our partnership from Polkadot to Solana. Moonstake and RockX will continue to push the boundaries together to improve access to blockchain services and focus further on the growth of our Solana ecosystem, just as we did before with Polkadot.”

Follow us on Twitter and Telegram for the latest updates on Moonstake news!

About Moonstake

Moonstake is the world’s leading staking service provider that develops and operates decentralized wallet services for businesses and individuals.

Since its launch in April 2020, Moonstake has partnered with 27 leading platform providers, including Cardano’s constituent Emurgo, developer of the Polkadot-connected blockchain Astar Network Stake Technologies, and the TRON Network with over 50 million users. In May 2021, Moonstake further enhanced its corporate credibility by becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of OIO Holdings Limited, a company listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange.

Using blockchain technology, Moonstake aims to progress toward a world where anyone can easily make use of highly secure and reliable digital asset management tools.

https://www.moonstake.io/       

About Moonstake’s staking business

For the staking industry, which has grown into a 630-billion dollar market as of September 2021, Moonstake provides a decentralized staking service that does not require user deposits, and supports nodes around the world in addition to its own validator nodes. Moonstake currently supports the staking of 18 blockchains. With a total staking assets of 1.8 billion USD and a global user base, the company ranked third out of more than 10,000 providers worldwide in June of the same year.

About RockX

RockX is a global blockchain node network to staking, data, and security. The team is equipped with a wealth of experience in mining, staking, protocol research, and infrastructure design. In recent years, the company has built access node APIs for popular Layer 1 and 2 protocols for developers and helps companies seamlessly access and interact with blockchains.

With over USD 900 million worth of tokens staked, RockX is one of Asia’s leading staking platforms. Focusing on serving institutional and high net-worth clients globally to compound their returns on cryptocurrencies, RockX is always open to collaborating with synergistic partners & innovative Web 3.0 projects, ultimately helping to build the decentralised financial ecosystem.

https://www.rockx.com/ 

Today, Moonstake is pleased to announce we are launching a crypto investing platform targeting the needs and demands of beginners called MoonWealth. It is a simple yet secure platform that allows anyone to get started with crypto investing with a peace of mind. MoonWealth was created with the mission to educate new investors about the advantages and risks of crypto investing, giving them the chance to make conscious financial decisions that grow their wealth.

The crypto market has been and is continuing to grow exponentially. A 2021 research estimated that around 300 million people worldwide own crypto and the average person now is aware of much more than just Bitcoin. Thanks to game-changing industry developments and unprecedented enterprise adoption, more and more people are becoming interested in crypto investing, but are still hesitating due to risk aversion. Since crypto is a tech-heavy field, there are a lot of factors that contribute to the high barrier of entry, such as the complexity of managing crypto assets by yourself, the fast-moving and often unpredictable nature of this market, the lack of easily digestible educational information for newcomers, or the unfortunate abundance of scammers. This is where the beginner platform MoonWealth comes in, to give the crypto industry a much-needed solution that focuses on transparency and educating retail consumers about the risks and benefits of crypto investing.

The MoonWealth platform is made up of two key components, Learn and Earn, that cover a newcomer’s whole crypto journey from knowledge exploration to practical application and investing. MoonWealth Learn is an interactive learning experience where users will be able to learn and test their crypto knowledge in a quick and simple manner. By providing the necessary context and simplifying the wealth of information available on crypto investing, MoonWealth aims to be the ideal starting point for anyone, regardless of their level of crypto knowledge or investing experience, to understand and participate in crypto easily. To follow up on MoonWealth Learn,  MoonWealth Earn is also in the plan, which will offer users valuable investment products as the next step of the newbie’s crypto journey in the near future. Users of MoonWealth Learn can earn Learn points, which can be used to redeem benefits. You can currently access the official MoonWealth website and MoonWealth Earn crypto learning platform here.

MoonWealth is the new project of Moonstake, a wholly owned subsidiary of Singapore Exchange listed OIO Holdings (SGX: KUX). Established in April 2020, Moonstake is currently a top 10 staking provider globally that operates a top-rated self-custodial staking platform for Web and Mobile users with support for 17 leading cryptocurrencies as well as stablecoins and NFTs. We are committed to bringing transparency and trust to our customers and constantly strive to improve our operations, which has earned us the recognition as a Verified Provider according to the leading global staking data aggregator Staking Rewards. 

Speaking on the launch of MoonWealth, Moonstake Founder Mitsuru Tezuka states:

“We’re excited to launch the new platform, MoonWealth, to help newcomers to the crypto investment field quickly and easily get started. With both the Moonstake and MoonWealth Learn and Earn product suite, we hope to satisfy the needs and demands of the widest range of crypto users possible, regardless of their level of industry knowledge and experience, and more strongly promote widespread adoption of cryptocurrency. This is also a part of OIO’s approach to investing and education: giving a transparent and neutral view of the investment products by focusing not on unsustainable yields levels but on a long-term, healthy vision of the crypto market in general.”

With Moonstake, we aim to cover the needs of experienced crypto users and with MoonWealth, we aim to support and guide new users to the crypto ecosystem. Both platforms will work in tandem to serve the needs of crypto users of all experience levels and promote the staking and digital asset ecosystems as a whole to accelerate global adoption.The launch of this new project aligns with Moonstake’s mission to satisfy the increasing demands of investors and businesses in regional and global blockchain markets by providing an active environment for crypto asset holders, both newbies and experienced enthusiasts. 

Follow the official MoonWealth Twitter here to catch all the latest news and updates of this new product. You can also join the official Moonstake Twitter and Telegram for news, platform updates, industry insights, and exclusive information about reward campaigns!

About Moonstake

Moonstake is the world’s leading staking service provider that develops and operates decentralized wallet services for businesses and individuals.

Since its launch in April 2020, Moonstake has partnered with 27 leading platform providers, including Cardano’s constituent Emurgo, developer of the Polkadot-connected blockchain Astar Network Stake Technologies, and the TRON Network with over 50 million users. In May 2021, Moonstake further enhanced its corporate credibility by becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of OIO Holdings Limited, a company listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange.

Using blockchain technology, Moonstake aims to progress toward a world where anyone can easily make use of highly secure and reliable digital asset management tools.

https://www.moonstake.io/      

About Moonstake’s staking business

For the staking industry, which has grown into a 630-billion dollar market as of September 2021, Moonstake provides a decentralized staking service that does not require user deposits, and supports nodes around the world in addition to its own validator nodes. Moonstake currently supports the staking of 17 blockchains. With a total staking assets of 1.8 billion USD and a global user base, the company ranked third out of more than 10,000 providers worldwide in June of the same year.

Moonstake is pleased to announce we will be attending the world’s first staking summit hosted by the staking industry’s leading data aggregator Staking Rewards on 8th November, 2022. The event sets out to gather the foremost experts and investors from across the industry, with big-name speakers from Ethereum, Cosmos, Polkadot, and many more, to explore where crypto’s rapidly growing $300+ billion staking ecosystem goes after the Ethereum Merge. Our advisor, Michael Burgess, will attend the event as a panel speaker on the topic of staking.

The Staking Summit by Staking Rewards is part of Lisbon’s Blockchain Month and it aims to tackle some of staking’s thorniest questions as it advances towards institutional adoption, as well as validator and governance best practices, and behavioral insights. The event will comprise of keynote presentations, panels and discussion groups. It is sponsored by leading industry names such as Obol Labs, Luganodes, Tencent, Meta Pool, Allnodes, Ankr, Tenderize, GlobalStake, Sikka Money and Staking Facilities. The Staking Summit will be held at LX Factory in Lisbon from 9AM to 7PM, and limited to 500 attendees. There will also be an exclusive party for VIP ticket holders afterward. For more information and to book your tickets, please visit: https://stakingsummit2022.eventbrite.com/   

Moonstake started the staking business in 2020 with the aim to create the largest staking network in Asia. Since then, we have developed the most user-friendly Web Wallet and Mobile Wallet (iOS / Android) with support for over 2000 cryptocurrencies. After a full-scale operation launched in August 2020, Moonstake’s total staking assets have grown rapidly to reach $1 Billion, allowing Moonstake to become one of the top 10 staking providers globally. Currently, Moonstake supports 17 leading PoS assets including Cosmos, IRISnet, Ontology, Harmony, Tezos, Cardano, Qtum, Polkadot, Quras, Centrality, Orbs (Ethereum and Polygon), IOST, TRON, Shiden, FIO, Everscale, and Oasis. As a Verified Provider of the StakingRewards Verified Provider Program (VPP) and top 10 staking providers worldwide, Moonstake is excited to join The Staking Summit to share our thoughts and insights with other leading PoS players.

Founded in 2017, Staking Rewards is the central information hub and leading data aggregator for the crypto staking industry. It provides insights and investment tools for private and institutional investors through unbiased and live staking market data, simplifying portfolio and calculator tools, and deep research analysis about the staking industry. The Staking Rewards API feed is being used by major companies like Coinbase and Bitcoin Suisse. 

Speaking on the objective of the summit, Staking Rewards CEO Mirko Schmiedl, said:

“Outside of Bitcoin, mining is dead and Proof of Stake is the new king. But for an industry with such huge monetary value, surprisingly little discussion and collaboration is happening between different protocols. We need to fix that. The more we can learn from each other, the more robust and valuable the ecosystem as a whole will be. This is what The Staking Summit sets out to achieve, to answer the collective question: where does staking go next?”

Representing Moonstake staking provider at the summit as a panel speaker, Advisor Michael Burgess said:

“As one of Asia’s largest staking providers, we’re honored to be a part of the inaugural Staking Summit in Lisbon. It allows Moonstake to showcase its progress, gain prominence, and acquire insights into trends from industry leaders. We look forward to convening with leading PoS players across the world and discussing how we can work to accelerate the growth of the staking ecosystem as a whole.”

About Moonstake

Moonstake is the world’s leading staking service provider that develops and operates decentralized wallet services for businesses and individuals.

Since its launch in April 2020, Moonstake has partnered with 27 leading platform providers, including Cardano’s constituent Emurgo, developer of the Polkadot-connected blockchain Astar Network Stake Technologies, and the TRON Network with over 50 million users. In May 2021, Moonstake further enhanced its corporate credibility by becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of OIO Holdings Limited, a company listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange.

Using blockchain technology, Moonstake aims to progress toward a world where anyone can easily make use of highly secure and reliable digital asset management tools.

https://www.moonstake.io/     

About Moonstake’s staking business

For the staking industry, which has grown into a 630-billion dollar market as of September 2021, Moonstake provides a decentralized staking service that does not require user deposits, and supports nodes around the world in addition to its own validator nodes. Moonstake currently supports the staking of 17 blockchains. With a total staking assets of 1.8 billion USD and a global user base, the company ranked third out of more than 10,000 providers worldwide in June of the same year.

About Staking Rewards

Staking Rewards is the leading data aggregator for the rapidly growing $300 billion+ crypto staking industry, used by more than 400,000 investors, analysts, and crypto community enthusiasts globally.

https://www.stakingrewards.com/ 

Positioned as the prime alternative to Bitcoin’s Proof of Work (PoW), Proof of Stake (PoS) aims to address what it identifies as weaknesses in the PoW system. Namely, high energy consumption, slow transaction speed, costly transaction fees, and decentralized governance. Instead of determining validators based on raw computational power, PoS selects random validators for the next block based on the amount of coins they lock up. This makes it more accessible to become a validator, while also preventing centralization of validation power such as the phenomenon of concentrated mining farms in PoW. 

However, not all staking coins utilize PoS. In fact, a number of staking coins supported by Moonstake, such as TRON, FIO, IOST, utilize different variations of the Proof of Stake consensus. In this article, we’ll look at some alternative consensus algorithms to Proof of Stake and what problems they are trying to solve to have a better understanding of the staking market and the future it could potentially head to.

Delegated Proof of Stake

One of the most well-known modifications of PoS is Delegated Proof of Stake (dPoS), utilized by popular blockchains such as Cardano and TRON. A common criticism levied at Proof of Stake is that it can essentially be a system where “the rich takes all”, which is ironic considering it can be argued to resemble the fiat system that blockchain opposes so much since the beginning. The “51% attack” that Bitcoin is always threatened by can still happen to PoS blockchains as it is simply a difference of 51% of the computational power, which is bought by money to buy mining equipment, and 51% of the validators under the same “person”, which is bought by staking lots of coins in the network. Although it might be “harder” to own 51% of the staked assets in a blockchain, the threat of centralization via amassing money aka power is still lurking even in PoS chains. 

This is where Delegated Proof of Stake comes into play, to address the potential problem of centralized governance. The first iteration of DPoS was introduced in 2014 by the former CTO of EOS, Dan Larimer. Today, EOS along with other prominent chains such as TRON and FIO are utilizing this architecture. In this system, users of the network vote and elect delegates to validate the next block, who are usually called “Block Producers”. Using DPoS, you can vote on delegates by staking your tokens into a staking pool and linking those to a particular delegate. Let’s look at a detailed example to understand how this works:

• In Centrality which is a PoS chain, users can earn by staking to the 12 validators of the network. These validators are randomly chosen every 24 hours by an algorithm based on their total stake in the network, which is the sum of their own staked assets and the total assets users stake to their validator node.  
• In TRON which is a dPoS chain, users can vote for the Super Representatives (SR) and Super Partners (SP) they support. There are 27 Super Representatives who validate blocks and 100 Super Partners who don’t validate blocks but still receive rewards, and users can earn from staking to these pools. Any Tron account can submit an application to become a super representative candidate by paying 9,999 TRX. Meanwhile, the list of SRs and SPs can change every 6 hours when elections are held, so only trusted pools that have a high staking volume will be able to become SRs and SPs. 

In this way, dPoS aims to further decentralize the PoS model and increased the governance capabilities of individual users of the network. Proponents of dPoS claims that it is a more democratic way of choosing validators since it is based on earned reputation as a lawful staker and not overall wealth. Currently, Moonstake is a strategic validator partner the TRON and FIO dPoS networks, and many of the staking assets we currently support are also dPoS.

Proof of Believability 

Another “evolution” of PoS is Proof of Believability (PoB), most prominently used by the IOST blockchain. PoB tries to take the idea of “reputation” to the next level by considering the validator node’s reputation, contribution, and behavior in the qualification process. While IOST randomly selects validators like the typical PoS model, it also uses a reputation-based system called Servi, which are non-tradeable tokens given to good actors in the IOST ecosystem. According to IOST, the Servi balance of a user who just got selected to be a validator is cleaned to maximize fairness and prevent the situation of “the rich gets richer”. Each node also has a “believability” score which is determined by:

• How many IOST tokens are stored in the node (users’ stake)
• Number of Servi tokens earned
• How many positive reviews the node has
• Node transaction and action history

The higher the believability score is, the more likely the node will be selected for the next block. Due to the randomization though, the same node will not be selected twice to ensure fairness and high accessibility. IOST also works with industry-leading, proven partner nodes, such as Moonstake, to power its ecosystem transactions and growth.

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Delegated Proof of Stake and Proof of Believability aren’t the only two alternatives to Proof of Stake. However, they aren’t the only ways blockchains are trying to improve the PoS model either. Technologies such as sharding are being utilized by PoS chains such as Harmony and Polkadot to further address the scalability, interoperability, and performance issues typical of the blockchain experience.

If you’d like to learn more about this topic, let us know by commenting on our official social media channels like Twitter and Telegram. You can also get the latest news updates and campaign information there so be sure to follow us!

Today, Moonstake is proud to announce that we are now officially a Verified Provider as part of Staking Rewards’ Verified Provider Program! We join the VPP family as a top 10 staking provider worldwide trusted by users and leading PoS blockchain projects across the globe.

The Verified Provider Program (VPP) is an initiative by Staking Rewards to increase trust, transparency, and reliability in the staking industry by verifying that Providers meet a set of criteria relating to risk management, longevity, and security measures. The program aims to help investors make confident decisions about Staking Providers by conducting rigorous due diligence on the provider’s operations and security setup to determine if their service truly provides users with Reliability, Security, Accountability, Liability. Additionally, they also calculate a “Value-Added Score” that considers things like customer service, value-added services offered, decentralization ethos, and governance participation. As a Verified Provider, Moonstake is proven to provide an outstanding staking platform with exceptional user experience, be it in asset management and security for users or customer service. 

Moonstake started the staking business last year with the aim to create the largest staking network in Asia. Since then, we have developed the most user-friendly Web Wallet and Mobile Wallet (iOS / Android) with support for over 2000 cryptocurrencies. After a full-scale operation launched in August 2020, Moonstake’s total staking assets have grown rapidly to reach $1 Billion, allowing Moonstake to become one of the top 10 staking providers globally. Currently, Moonstake supports 17 leading PoS assets including Cosmos, IRISnet, Ontology, Harmony, Tezos, Cardano, Qtum, Polkadot, Quras, Centrality, Orbs (Ethereum and Polygon), IOST, TRON, Shiden, FIO, Everscale, and Oasis.

Founded in 2017, Staking Rewards is the central information hub and leading data aggregator for the crypto staking industry. It provides insights and investment tools for private and institutional investors through unbiased and live staking market data, simplifying portfolio and calculator tools, and deep research analysis about the staking industry. The Staking Rewards API feed is being used by major companies like Coinbase and Bitcoin Suisse. 

Mitsuru Tezuka, Founder at Moonstake, says:

“We’re honored to become a part of Staking Rewards Verified Provider Program as a Top 10 global staking provider. Moonstake is always striving to offer the best staking experience for users worldwide with support for high-demand assets, a robust and secure staking infrastructure developed by our expert development team as well as in partnership with leading industry partners, excellent customer support and multilingual services, as well as sharing valuable industry news and insights to our users. We hope to continue serving the crypto community and receive your continued support!”

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About Moonstake

Moonstake is the world’s leading staking service provider that develops and operates decentralized wallet services for businesses and individuals.

Since its launch in April 2020, Moonstake has partnered with 27 leading platform providers, including Cardano’s constituent Emurgo, developer of the Polkadot-connected blockchain Astar Network Stake Technologies, and the TRON Network with over 50 million users. In May 2021, Moonstake further enhanced its corporate credibility by becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of OIO Holdings Limited, a company listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange.

Using blockchain technology, Moonstake aims to progress toward a world where anyone can easily make use of highly secure and reliable digital asset management tools.

https://www.moonstake.io/    

About Moonstake’s staking business

For the staking industry, which has grown into a 630-billion dollar market as of September 2021, Moonstake provides a decentralized staking service that does not require user deposits, and supports nodes around the world in addition to its own validator nodes. Moonstake currently supports the staking of 17 blockchains. With a total staking assets of 1.8 billion USD and a global user base, the company ranked third out of more than 10,000 providers worldwide in June of the same year.

About Staking Rewards

Staking Rewards is a platform of open-concourse, that provides data and guidance to minimize the risk when investing in the countless opportunities to earn passive income with cryptocurrencies. The team is curating knowledge and data to build a healthy staking and defi ecosystem. Staking Rewards is committed to lowering the access barrier to staking opportunities by presenting, comparing and benchmarking all the (Staking) Providers, who are dedicated to providing infrastructure, security, expertise and sometimes even custody or insurance for the staking assets.

https://www.stakingrewards.com/ 

Welcome to this week’s article on the most relevant crypto news. Keeping up with the latest industry news is key to making strategic moves with your crypto assets. With this new article series, we hope to help users catch all the important information conveniently. For this edition, we will be covering all the market news you need to know in the week of 3 – 7 October 2022, including news about the upcoming Cardano Voiltaire era and ADA staking, institutional sentiments towards crypto, and other major industry and adoption news. Let’s dive in!

Cardano Voltaire is Coming Soon, Promises to Enhance ADA Staking Experience

Just a little while after completing its milestone Vasil upgrade, Cardano is already quick on its heels to prepare for the next big update: The Voiltaire Age. According to Founder Charles Hoskinson, this next era of Cardano will focus on further decentralizing the network’s governance, as well as empowering users and builders. With the introduction of a voting and treasury system, network participants will be able to use their stake and voting rights to influence the future development of the network.

As expected, user sentiments on the future of Cardano are largely bullish, despite the recent Vasil hard fork having little impact on ADA’s market price. We’ll just have to wait and see how it will all unfold, but it is always great to see such enthusiastic continued developments for blockchain networks, which is one of the most appealing aspects of the Cardano ecosystem that makes it stand out in the market. And as always, Moonstake will be closely monitoring all developments to provide you with prompt support for the best ADA staking experience!

Polkadot, Ripple, and Cardano Are Amongst The Top 10 Cryptos Chosen By Banks

A new report by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) revealed the top 10 cryptos popular with banks: BTC, ETH, DOT, XRP, ADA, SOL, LTC, XLM, and BNB, with Bitcoin and Ethereum expectedly making up almost 90% of the reported exposure due to their massive market capitalization. As expected, cryptocurrencies with a focus on scalability and interoperability make up most of this list and according to the report, the largest activity adding to banks’ crypto exposure was custody or wallet-related services. 

The report details that institutional investors looking to gain regulated exposure to the digital asset space are “likely to turn to the growing number of crypto investment products” and adds that these make “crypto more accessible to investors because they can be traded on traditional stock exchanges”. Indeed, it will be interesting to see how institutions will utilize these crypto assets and decentralized networks to improve the banking industry. We have a whole article dedicated to institutional adoption of crypto and why some crypto users oppose it here if you’d like to explore this aspect further.

Users Can Cross-post NFTs Between Facebook and Instagram

Since changing its company name into Meta, Facebook has been getting more and more involved in the decentralized space. From developing its own blockchain programming language, Move, to integrating more NFT supportive features on both Facebook and Instagram. Now, the company has taken the support for NFTs to the next level by allowing users to cross-post NFTs between these two social media platforms, which are the largest in the world. Currently, users can connect their crypto wallet to both Facebook and Instagram to start using their NFT features. This is development serves as a key part of Meta’s plan to expand their presence in the Metaverse and increase the use cases and flexibility of NFTs.

Kazakhstan Going Big with Cryptocurrency

After the Chinese government formally enforce a ban on cryptocurrency mining in its territory, several mining companies there has migrated operations to neighboring pro-crypto states such as Kazakhstan. Recently, the Central Asian country has received support from Russia with electricity supply to bolster crypto mining activities, as it is one of the major contributors to the Kazakshstan economy. And just earlier this week, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao announced that they have obtained presidential approval to develop a crypto marketplace in Kazakshtan. Even though the governmental ban seems to be doing little to slow down the growth of crypto in China, it is interesting to see that the mining exodus from China is benefitting another country competitive in the crypto adoption scene.

Major Telecommunications Company Now Supports Ethereum with Infrastructure

Deutsche Telekom, the largest telecommunications provider in Europe by revenue and parent company of T-Mobile, recently announced that it “supports Ethereum with infrastructure”. Specifically, they are supporting the Ethereum network with infrastructure in the form of validation nodes. This development notably follows Ethereum’s monumental development, The Merge, where their blockchain network transition from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake. Representatives from the company note that the new PoS Ethereum should solve many common problems of the blockchain regarding to scalability and energy consumption, and they expect high demand for the new upgraded network, thus the decision to take part in the Ethereum network as a validator. 

Regardless of your feelings towards The Merge, this is great news for crypto adoption as a whole and will hopefully reflect on market prices or at the very least, demand.

EU Takes A Major Step Towards Crypto Regulation Following Recent US Movements

This Wednesday, the European Council has agreed on the text for the Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation (MiCA) framework. This is a proposal that establishes rules for how digital asset exchanges and other service providers should operate in EU member states and will be voted on on the 10th October. If passed, this crypto regulatory framework wil come into effect at the start of 2024.

Specifically, MiCA proposes measures like identity checks and minimum requirements on stablecoin reserves for crypto asset service providers, which has become a major concern after the now infamous incident with Terra. Additionally, the proposal seeks to impose restrictions on dollar-backed stablecoins like USDT and USDC due to their prominence in the industry over euro-backed stablecoins. Just recently, Biden signed an executive order on a paper signalling it is now time to start overseeing and potentially regulating crypto assets.

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We hope you enjoy this carefully curated news roundup by Moonstake, as our team strives to only bring the most relevant information for your crypto experience. See you next week!

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Mainstream adoption has always been one of the biggest goals set by blockchain projects, seen as the end goal of the industry. After all, having blockchain technology used on a global scale by the biggest institutions is the ultimate proof of usability, right? However, there are some crypto users out there who strongly believe that institutional adoption will bring more harm than good for the industry. In this article, let’s explore the different perspectives of proponents as well as opponents of institutional blockchain adoption.

Why Institutional Adoption is Important

As mentioned above, having big corporations and institutions adopt blockchain proves that the technology is actually viable in large-scale, everyday use by billions of people across the globe. After all, Bitcoin’s original vision in its whitepaper is “digital money that anyone can spend without needing to go through a bank or any other centralized organization”. Even today, many people still express doubt about whether this “lofty vision” is actually practical at all, since they believe that cryptocurrency is just a scam and “not real”. This is why it is important for blockchain and crypto to be accepted and adopted by the mainstream, especially major organizations.

Additionally, big adoption news tends to bring positive price developments. Getting embraced by a big institution is a major development milestone for any blockchain and typically results in significant market price increases for the coin. As a recent example, Solana blockchain’s current active roadmap and major adoption milestones have resulted in the coin’s positive price trajectory as of late amidst the ongoing bear market. As crypto investors, this is of course nothing but good news for us! 

Lastly, we of course believe that the values blockchain can change the world for the better. The idea of completely removing intermediaries and putting power in the hands of individuals is incredibly disruptive and arguably, a natural evolution of our world. The Internet and advancement in technology have allowed us to accomplish things we never thought possible before, like talking to other people from all over the world, purchasing goods, getting food and groceries, or even studying for a degree. Now, with crypto and blockchain, we can even freely send money to anyone from anywhere in the world, own digital collectibles just as, if not more valuable than physical art, and utilize as well as earn from ways we never imagine we could in the past: lending, staking, DeFi, etc. As such, making a bigger transition into the digital era with digital assets and decentralized financial systems simply feels like the correct, natural evolution of society as believers of the blockchain.

Why Some Are Against Institutional Adoption

So why would believers of the blockchain oppose mainstream adoption of the technology they believe so much in? One common reason stated is that blockchain will no longer be decentralized once centralized organizations get their hands on it. Since decentralized technology is all about enabling peer-to-peer connection between users and eliminating the central authority, having centralized organizations such as banks investing (thus having a higher stake) in blockchain seems rather ironic. Some users fear that banks, which centralize control of money, will try to establish centralization in blockchain ecosystems without bringing anything of value from their legacy system. Developments such as the Swedish bank creating its own cryptocurrency, e-krona, further lead opponents to create conspiracies such as institutions only wanting to stop the reduction in cash usage or even wanting to create “centralized” cryptocurrencies.  

However, it is important to understand how banks are utilizing blockchain to determine whether this is true. Right now, banks are primarily exploring how to utilize the technology of encrypted decentralized ledgers and smart contracts to improve data sharing and exchange. In particular, JP Morgan is currently offering a blockchain-powered solution to help banks request confirmation of the beneficiary account information and receive responses directly from other participating banks receiving the requests in near real-time, and more than 380 banks around the world are currently using this solution. Other banks like HSBC are utilizing blockchain more for transaction processing, such as the ability to issue digital tokens instead of paper certificates. And there are many other examples of banks trying to use blockchain to improve infrastructural procedures. 

Additionally, some users fear that “blockchain-powered” services provided by institutions won’t be secure and private like typical decentralized services in the industry. However, as mentioned above, if institutions are only using blockchain to improve internal infrastructure and operations, this shouldn’t affect everyday end users. It is understandable that we should be wary of banks’ attempts to create a “central bank-created digital currency”. However, we should also recognize and celebrate genuine efforts to improve traditional banking infrastructure and operations using blockchain technology.

Conclusion

Overall, institutional adoption can definitely bring more positivity to the industry than harm. However, as followers, builders, and believers of blockchain technology, it is important that we stay cognizant of all the important news and development of the market, including mainstream adoption progress – so that we can contribute our voice and actions to impact the direction of the ecosystems we take part in. After all, power to the individual is the foundation of decentralized technology!

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