Crypto staking is a way of opening up new revenue streams while investing in the longer-term future of a project. While staking won’t provide rewards if the value of the coins you’re holding falls to $0, it is an excellent way to let your crypto portfolio work for you with minimum effort. The key to successful staking is to stake tokens likely to retain their value or increase in the long run.
What is staking?
Staking is a way of locking up tokens to allow transactions in a proof-of-stake (PoS) network to be validated. These tokens help maintain the network’s security and provide a return against the staked cryptos, typically similar to interest received on a traditional bank savings account.
With PoS networks proving significantly greener, with only 0.01% energy emissions from older proof-of-work (PoW) networks, such as Ethereum’s old blockchain or Bitcoin, token holders must HOLD their tokens to see gains.
The trick is to find a balance between tokens that retain their value during bearish market conditions yet offer excellent rewards for staking. Generally, tokens providing between 2 and 20% APR rewards have a good chance of appreciating in the long run and providing investors with rich profits.
These are the best five staking crypto to buy in February 2023:
- Metacade (MCADE)
- Polkadot (DOT)
- Ethereum (ETH)
- Solana (SOL)
- Binance Coin (BNB)
1. Metacade (MCADE) – The best staking crypto to buy
Metacade is a metaverse-based community gaming hub that offers the broadest range of Web3 and play-to-earn (P2E) gaming titles. The aim is for Metacade to become the leading GameFi platform for connecting gamers and developers and being the place of choice for all things metaverse gaming related.
The outstanding P2E mechanics are one of Metacade’s prime selling points. However, it’s far from the only plus point. Indeed, Metacade has rich earning potential for users outside of the gaming experience. The Compete2Earn scheme ties in with the P2E arm of Metacade’s offering by allowing gamers to compete in online tournaments against other seasoned GameFi fans and potentially win a share of lucrative prize pots.
Meanwhile, the Create2Earn initiative allows users to earn passive income by posting game reviews, sharing knowledge, and interacting with other community members. Finally, the Work2Earn program, due to go live in Q1 of 2024, offers users the chance to find the best Web3 and GameFi job opportunities on the hub’s interactive careers board.
This earning power is fuelled by several revenue sources, mostly from external sources. These include external advertising, charging external gaming companies to release games on the platform, and gaining revenue from Web3 companies that post vacancies on the jobs board.
Internal revenue comes from MCADE coin holders, who can contribute to the self-sufficient ecosystem by staking their tokens and potentially gaining rewards. To avoid inflating the number of MCADE tokens in circulation and adversely affecting the value of MCADE, Metacade has chosen to use a stablecoin for rewards.
Metacade’s plans include those designed to put the platform at the front of GameFi and Web3 gaming innovation through its ground-breaking Metagrants scheme. From Q3 of 2023, developers will be encouraged to submit applications for funding to support the production of new exclusive gaming titles. The community members vote for each submission round, with the most popular receiving a crypto grant to keep the game design and development.
The ultimate goal is for Metacade to transition into a fully-fledged decentralized autonomous application (DAO) by Q4 of 2024. By then, complete control of the platform’s governance, treasury, and future direction will be in the hands of MCADE token holders.
Staking in Metacade allows investors to earn passive rewards while watching the world’s first virtual gaming arcade develop and take off. With MCADE’s value projected to rise significantly once it hits exchanges, potentially beating the $1 barrier in 2023, Metacade is the best staking crypto to buy this year.
>>> You can participate in the Metacade presale here <<<
2. Polkadot (DOT) – The best staking crypto to support interoperability
Polkadot is a platform that has provided a solution to the conundrum of finding interoperability between different blockchains. In short, Polkadot uses parachains, two blockchains in parallel, to enable two blockchains, such as Ethereum and Cardano, to communicate.
The benefits of Polkadot’s capability allow fast and scalable transaction speeds and remove the need for a platform to be accountable to a single blockchain provider. Polkadot’s native token is DOT, which is used for governance and transaction validation through the platform’s rapid and energy-efficient proof of stake (PoS) consensus mechanism.
DOT is still a relatively new token, released in 2020, yet it has quickly risen to become one of the most valuable cryptos in circulation.
Coin holders who choose to stake DOT can run their stake as a validator node. This will see returns of approximately 14.8% if staked directly but nearer 10-12% if staked through a DEX such as Kraken. This will require a minimum stake of 350 DOT. Alternatives include staking up to 80 DOT to become a delegator, yielding around 13.9% per annum. Both options require a lock-in of just 28 days, a superb value for investors seeking quick rewards on their holding.
With Polkadot offering some of the strongest returns of any PoS cryptocurrency and having a bright future thanks to its market-leading interoperability, DOT is the second-best staking crypto to buy.
3. Ethereum (ETH) – Excellent long-term staking crypto option
Ethereum is the world’s leading blockchain provider and has seen off challenges from several would-be competitors with its recent “Ethereum 2.0” release. This moved the platform from its previous slow and energy-inefficient PoW consensus to a market-leading PoS mechanism.
This upgrade has improved scalability, energy emissions, cost, and scalability, offering customers a more efficient and cost-effective solution. The upgrade also allows ETH token holders to stake their tokens and validate transactions without setting up expensive and energy-sapping mining rigs.
Any stakes are locked up in the platform until the release of the Shanghai upgrade, due later in 2023, so Ethereum isn’t an option for anyone looking to make returns on the ETH holding in the short term. However, anyone intending to HODL ETH in the long term will stand to benefit.
Investors with at least 32 ETH can run a validator node or operate a validator-as-a-service, with between 4 and 4.5% returns. While this represents a significant investment in USD, those with less ETH to stake can go through crypto exchanges or staking pools to gain a return. With no minimum stake amounts required, annual returns are currently between 4 and 5.2%.
Usually, locking in a stake for six months would be inadvisable due to the high-risk nature of crypto markets. However, Ethereum is a well-established blockchain with planned upgrades due this year. This is a sign of reassurance to markets that will see ETH hold its value and potentially increase. With excellent long-term prospects when crypto markets recover, ETH is in the top three staking cryptos to buy.
4. Solana (SOL) – Excellent smart contract provider with excellent staking returns
Solana was developed as a solution to the issues of scalability and speed that plagued the Ethereum network and has since emerged as an excellent alternative smart contract platform.
With comparatively rocket-fuelled speeds of 3500 transactions per second (TPS) compared to Ethereum’s previous 10-30 TPS, and with their own documentation claiming potential capacity for 710,000 TPS on a standard 1GB network, it’s easy to see why Solana is such an attractive platform.
Indeed, this maximum-capacity still dwarfs Ethereum’s post-upgrade maximum of 100,000 TPS and is all down to Solana’s unique proof-of-history (PoH) consensus mechanism. PoH removes the need for timestamps in the block data, meaning that storage space is freed up and transaction times are significantly reduced. In addition, further benefits are passed onto the customer through low costs and the environment with extremely low energy usage.
Investors can stake as little as 1 SOL to operate a validator node with a minimum lockup period of only five days. Annual returns are around 7 to 7.9%. Alternatively, investors can become delegators with the same minimum stakes and lockup periods. While easier, returns are slightly lower, hovering around the 7% mark.
The easiest way to see a return on any stake is by staking through Binance, which offers annual returns of up to 16.9% APR. This is based on a five SOL minimum stake for 120 days.
Solana’s place as one of the best staking crypto coins to buy is assured through its easy accessibility to all coin holders, competitive returns, and compelling use case.
5. Binance Coin (BNB) – The best exchange staking crypto to buy
Binance Coin (BNB) is the native token of one of the world’s leading crypto exchanges, Binance. Initially used to facilitate trading fee discounts, BNB now powers Binance’s Smart Chain (BSC), another smart contract platform used as an alternative to Ethereum.
Although nowhere near as significant in terms of users as Ethereum, BSC has become increasingly used to host decentralized apps (dAPPs), with almost 4,500 currently using the platform.
Binance is one of the most prominent crypto players in the world, not only with its exchange but in terms of market cap and as one of the most staked coins anywhere on crypto markets, with a staking ratio of 96.86% at the end of December 2022.
With BNB proving ever-popular with investors, Binance burns BNB each quarter to restrict supply and help maintain the coin value. With staking rewards of around 4.1% annually, this represents a good choice for anyone HODLing BNB over the long term.
Anyone with at least 1BNB can stake in Binance by becoming a delegator. The minimum lockup period is seven days with 4.1% returns. Running a validator node is unobtainable for most stakers, with 10,000BNB required. BNB’s high staking ratio demonstrates the belief in Binance as a cryptocurrency and provides excellent long-term rewards for those in it for the long haul.
Metacade (MCADE) is the best staking crypto to buy
All five currencies in this article represent good value to anyone searching for staking crypto to buy. Patience is rewarded over time, with rewards accumulating with minimum effort.
Metacade is the best token to lock up for an extended period due to its attractive staking rewards and excellent long-term potential, most notably in the staking world. P2E gaming is expected to grow about 20% year-on-year over the next five years, far quicker than traditional console-based gaming.
With Metacade’s roadmap showing its intention to become a leader in the GameFi space, MCADE’s long-term future looks bright. This makes it an excellent time to buy MCADE, especially at its presale value of $0.01, which looks highly undervalued. With price predictions suggesting that MCADE could reach $1 in 2023, anyone intending to HODL tokens for an extended period should check out the MCADE presale today.
You can buy DOT, ETH, SOL, and BNB coins on this list at eToro here.
You can participate in the Metacade presale here.
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