#37: Proof of Staked Authority
Binance smart chain whitepaper, NEAR roadmap and economics, Celo mainnet and auction, and more!
This newsletter is supported by Chorus One, an operator of validating nodes and staking services on Proof-of-Stake networks.
Binance Smart Chain to Feature Staking
Binance released a whitepaper describing a smart contract platform design that would use BNB as a staking token. This blockchain will be separate from the current Binance Chain (BC), which will continue operating fully focused on its exchange capabilities. Binance Smart Chain (BSC) will be fully EVM-compatible and support existing tooling, which further consolidates that Binance is developing into something larger than a venue to exchange cryptoassets.
The whitepaper describes a “Proof of Staked Authority” scheme, in which 21 validators will be elected to produce blocks every 24 hours based on their stake-backing in BNB tokens. The two chains will be interoperable and BNB holders will be able to delegate their tokens on BC with reward and slashing mechanisms, similar to what is implemented on Cosmos. Since there is no inflation on BNB tokens, only gas fees paid in BNB will be paid out to validators and their delegators. It will be interesting to see if the chain will be able to sustain itself purely on transaction fees - so far there is no information on what kind of applications to expect.
NEAR Economics for Stakers and Roadmap
Sharded layer-1 project NEAR published their roadmap leading to mainnet. The staged launch will start with a PoA network operated by the NEAR Foundation and slowly opening to external validators with a restricted version between June and August before finally launching the community-governed mainnet potentially around Q3 this year.
In addition, Co-Founder Illia released an in-depth explainer of NEAR economics using examples to illustrate what stakers and developers on the network can expect. Together with their economics whitepaper NEAR’s design is well defined and documented, which will hopefully serve as an inspiration to other protocols going forward.
Celo Mainnet Release Candidate and Auction
Celo’s mainnet release candidate launched this week on Earth Day, April 22. Check the live network with currently 65 validating nodes out at https://stats.celo.org.
Celo will host a live dutch auction on CoinList May 7, similar to Solana’s a few weeks back. If you’re interested to participate or to learn more about, visit the official CoinList page that contains all the details.
Quick Updates
Keep Stakedrop: The Keep team announced a stakedrop of KEEP tokens to ETH holders participating in the mechanism that borrows from Edgeware’s lockdrop. Signers for Keep’s tBTC bridge will be required to hold both KEEP and ETH. The event will start Jun 8.
Token Terminal: A new website focused on providing interesting fundamental financial information on DeFi protocols and staking tokens. The team also releases a lot of basic explainers of protocols on their Twitter and Medium. Worth a follow!
Experimenting with Ads: Prime staking data website Staking Rewards is trying out a cool new ad model by selling NFTs on OpenSea in exchange for advertising slots on the website.
Staking as the New Saving: 1confirmation’s Nick Tomaino on what needs to happen to make non-custodial staking a success, a sentiment that resonates and shows that there still is a lot of work to be done in the space.
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Staking Economy is written by Felix Lutsch from Chorus One with assistance from Chris Remus, operator of the Chainflow validators. Join us in the Staking Economy Telegram to discuss staking. Opinions expressed are our own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Chorus One. All content is for informational purposes only and not intended as investment advice.