NIX is transitioning to a trustless Leasing Proof of Stake consensus model to allow for third-party staking services/cold-staking.

This implementation has been successfully activated on mainnet at block 115,921.

NIX’s LPoS mechanism is a trustless leased staking system that allows NIX users to stake their coins via a separate wallet (third party) without the traditional trust issues between the merchant/third party and the owner. By doing so, third parties staking services can trustlessly receive a stake fee reward based on a leasing smart contract signed by the owner.

This application is completely secure for both parties as no spendable balance nor private keys need to be shared with the staker, meaning only the owner has the authority to spend his/her coins.

To achieve this goal, NIX is implementing a non-custodial setup via smart contracts directly from user’s wallet, which establish the following:

Consensus restriction for third parties to spend owner’s coins.

Ability to embed a fee percent that allows third party to take from stake reward.

Reward address requirement that can allow cold storage rewards for third party.

Although NIX’s LPoS consensus is mainly focused on allowing third parties to stake NIX on the owner’s behalf, a Leasing Proof of Stake contract can also be created without allowing fees of any kind, which is a typical case for users who want to cold stake their coins on their own VPS.

Conclusion

Third parties will be able to stake other user’s coins for a fee of the staking reward and having it sent to a specified address without the true owner of the coins compromising ownership.