If you’re familiar with cryptocurrencies, you’ve probably heard of staking. Staking is the act of holding your funds in a cryptocurrency wallet, to support the operations of a blockchain. So, you’re locking your crypto up to gain rewards, and help the network. In many scenarios, the process is reliant on crypto users using a personal crypto wallet to participate in the blockchain. Staking is an easy way to support your network of choice, and earn some passive income from your crypto. We’ll be taking a look at the top 5 staking tokens, and why you should consider staking.

Top 5

Let’s take a look at the top 5 staking tokens.

5. Komodo (KMD)

Komodo is a one step blockchain solution. Consensus on the Komodo network is achieved via an Adaptive Proof of Work algorithm. Investors can participate via Automatic Reward Distribution, where they’ll earn 5.1% of their staked tokens per annum. The required minimum to stake is 10 KMD.

4. ICON (ICX)

ICON is a decentralized eco-system that allows different blockchains to interact with each other. Consensus is achieved via Loop Fault Tolerance, so investors can participate in the network either by creating blocks or by voting.

Staking ICX will give you an annual reward of 19.62% of your staked tokens, with a minimum of one ICX staked. Running a Sub P-REP Node will give you 16.35% per annum, and running a Main P-REP Node will reward you with 20.60% per annum.

3. Tezos (XTZ)

Tezos is an open-source platform for assets and applications, that is backed by a huge community of validators, researchers and builders. Tezos is a self-amending cryptographic ledger, that works on a liquid proof-of-stake consensus algorithm. At the moment, there are two ways investors can earn passive income from Tezos, either by Baking or Delegating.

For Baking, you’ll earn an annual reward of 7.11%, with an adjacent reward of +2.07%. For Delegating you can earn 6.40% per annum, with an adjacent reward of +1.35%.

2. Cosmos (ATOM)

Cosmos was launched in March 2019, and it’s already in the second position out of the top staking blockchains. Cosmos portrays itself as “the internet of blockchains”, and encourages blockchain interoperability. Cosmos is a network of connected blockchain ecosystems, that functions on the Tendermint consensus algorithm. Investors can participate in the network via staking, with 2 options to earn passive income.

Running a validator node will earn you 9.53% of your staked tokens in annual reward, with an additional +2.62% in adjacent rewards. The second option is to delegate cosmos, which will give you 8.76% annually, and +1.85% in adjacent rewards.

Since 2016, Decred has been operating as an autonomous digital currency. Built on open-source technology, Decred blockchain consensus is achieved via a hybrid algorithm of proof-of-stake and proof-of-work. Investors can participate in the network by Voting or Delegating.

Voting will earn you 9.29% per annum, with an adjacent reward of +4.40%. Delegating will reward you with 9.19% per annum, and an adjacent reward of +4.30%.

Why you should stake

Now that we’ve taken a look at the top 5 staking tokens, it’s pretty clear that you can earn a decent passive income via this method. However, sometimes we can forget that there are other benefits to staking. For example, contributing to a network that you endorse can be a great way to help it grow. Or staking your VTEX tokens to receive hefty reductions in your transaction fees when trading on Vertex.Market can be another great incentive. There really are loads of reasons why staking can be beneficial to you, and to the network.