In this article we take a look at several Proof of Stake coins as an instrument to generate passive income.

Before You Start

If you’re not familiar with Proof of Work, Proof of Stake and cryptocurrency mining/staking, then please read our introduction to consensus mechanisms for an overview.

With wider cryptocurrency adoption, investors are looking for new income sources in order to make their crypto work for them.

But that’s easier said than done!

Before we dive into the best PoS coins, a few notes about best staking security practices.

Anti-Scam Precautions

We’re still on the early days of cryptocurrencies and not many solutions exist that offer safe and consistent returns.

Some passive income programs have turned out to be Ponzi schemes and many investors have grown justifiably wary of participating in such networks.

In this context, we single out some cryptos which are secure (as far as we know at the time of this writing) and offer excellent results.

Do Not Transfer Coins!

Proof of Stake cryptocurrencies do not require you to transfer your coins at all.

Be wary of any staking operation that requests you to transfer the actual coins to a different wallet.

Staking does not require coin transfers, you just need to delegate your account to a different address.

When you delegate your account, you’re giving a certain entity the right to vote for you and to represent your vote in the network.

Again: there is no coin transfer involved in staking!

When in doubt, ask for help from the community.

crypto.bi Editor’s Choice: Decred DCR

tl;dr; If we were to invest right now, we’d go for Decred DCR

Decred was initially based on Bitcoin but quickly established itself as an independent project by adopting a hybrid PoS and PoW consensus mechanism.

Today, Decred pays out between 8 and 9%, almost twice as much as Tezos XTZ.

Last year Decred yields varied from 13 to 14% but due to the large influx of new users, the yield has gone down proportionately.

There are, of course, higher yields to be found in the PoS arena, but none of the higher returns come from established and reliable projects like Decred.

It’s easy to achieve high ROI on new and low competition PoS coins. Not so easy in a large and trusted coin with high staking competition.

Decred achieves a high ROI with low risk and thus earned our Editor’s choice award.

Honorable Mention: Tezos XTZ

Tezos is an incredible project being developed in the OCaml programming language.

OCaml is a functional programming language that has found use in the aerospace and high end engineering industries, especially in France where the language was created.

OCaml is very tightly linked to formal software verification methods. The Coq proof assistant, for example, generates OCaml source code out of formally verified logical constructs.

Tezos offers yields in the 5.x% region. It is secure, well developed and has an amazing community around it.

DYOR

As always, do your own research and perform due diligence before embarking on any high risk investment.

This article is offered for informational purposes only.

Do not invest solely based on the information contained herein.

Proof of Stake (PoS)

Proof of Stake is an excellent decentralized solution which allows investors to earn cryptocurrency passive income. (That last phrase surely has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it!)

PoS does not depend on any centralized exchange since the blockchain itself is the ledger and participants earn income proportional to the amount they have staked.

As long as the stakeholders do not attempt to defraud the system (in which case the stake is debited proportionally to the fraud amount), the staked amount is 100% safe and will provide consistent returns as blocks are minted.

Worst that can happen in a PoS system is, assuming no serious software vulnerabilities exist, to earn zero or too low returns. (We’ll take a look at why this may be the case later in this article.)

So, let’s dive into the most profitable staking coins for the year!

Top Proof of Stake Coins

Several top rated cryptocurrencies provide passive income via PoS. Here we take a look at 33 of these coins and provide tips so you can achieve the best results.

Remember: we’re not judging these coins’ main application – but only their performance as passive income cryptocurrency investments.

If your favorite coin doesn’t score a favorable review here, remember the focus of this article is simply the coins’ profitability as a buy and forget type of investment.

We’ve tried to make this guide as comprehensive as possible so you can make the best choice for your next season of crypto purchases.

Tron

Tron currently yields 7.3% annually. Average PoS returns but excellent liquidity. Easy to buy, sell and trade on most large exchanges.

Visit Tron Website

Nuls

Nuls currently has a 18.15% yearly return rate. Not a very popular coin, low network difficulty reflects that.

Visit the Nuls website

Shift

At 12% annual yield, Shift is a good performer in the PoS arena.

Visit the Shift website

Particl

Particl currently yields 5% annually.

Official Particl website

Qtum

At 5.23% yearly returns, Qtum is not exactly one of the top performers in this comparison. Very popular, will be easily traded, but not exactly a star in the passive income arena.

Visit Qtum website

VeChain

At 2.45% yearly returns, VeChain might be great for many applications but not as a PoS passive income investment. High liquidity and many interesting projects stemming from the VET ecosystem, but not great as a passive income asset.

Visit the VeChain website here

Hshare

Yielding 6% / year, Hshare has attracted many investors although it’s not one of the top PoS performers.

Website

Bitbay

Bitbay investors receive 8.9% staking rewards per year.

Website

Waves

Waves currently presents 2.9% annual returns. Not one of the best performers but has high liquidity, large community and is easy to trade.

Waves website

Memetic

Memetic yields 23% annually. Watch out for low liquidity.

Memetic website

CloakCoin

At 6% annual PoS rewards, CloakCoin is an average performing passive return investment.

Official CloakCoin website

PeerCoin

At just 1% yearly yield, this probably won’t be your choice to invest in PoS cryptos for the time being.

Despite being low yield, PeerCoin is not really one of the most popular coins – it ranks 145 at CoinMarketCap today. The 1% yield is hard coded into the coin algorithm and isn’t a result of network difficulty.

PeerCoin website

KekCoin

Those who invest in KekCoin won’t get rekt as far as PoS returns go. 18% annually yield makes it a great performer.

Official cryptocurrency of the “blockchain of Memes” (Memechain).

KekCoin website

Deep Onion

At 10% annual yield, Deep Onion is a Tor user’s best friend. As the name suggests, anonymity is its greatest strength.

Visit Deep Onion’s official website

Wagerr WGR

At 5% yearly return, this is a below average performer as far as PoS rewards go.

Visit Wagerr’s official website

Cardano ADA

Cardano is a 3rd generation cryptocurrency that will start to use fully decentralized PoS during sometime in 2020.

We have no historical data to predict Cardano returns, but we’re able to draw some estimates based on their published staking rewards information

Solving an empty Cardano slot would reward 0,18 ADA.

Our estimated average Cardano slot reward will be 0,22 ADA.

Calculating the probability that a Cardano stakeholder will win a slot and adding up the average slot size reward yields the estimated rewards.

Use our Cardano Staking Calculator to check how much you can earn daily, monthly and yearly.

Unless the Cardano ADA formula is changed, then you should expect less than 4% yearly returns.

February 2020 Cardano ADA Update – Still in Tests

Cardano has been running the Shelley testnet for almost 3 months now and we have a better idea of the realistic yields you may expect from ADA staking.

It seems like pool operators are able to earn up to 20% on staked assets. Users are earning nearly as much minus the pool tax and delegation fee.

This is a very high yield but it’s the testnet where competition is very low. As the number of stakeholders increases you may expect the yield to decrease linearly with it.

Worth keeping an eye on ADA but at the time of this writing it wasn’t yet ready for mainnet staking.

Official Cardano Website

ARK

Network difficulty has high impact on ARK yields. Should a large number of users stake ARK at the same time, yields would be reduced accordingly.

With ARK you should expect between 8 and 10% annual return.

Ark website

Bean Cash

Bean Cash staking is actually called “sprouting”.

Bean Cash promises 2,5% monthly yield, which compounds to over 34% a year.

Bean Cash website

Linda

Linda promises 70% annual yield.

Ranking 375 at CoinMarketCap you can probably guess the 70% is due to very low network difficulty.

Linda’s official website

Decred DCR

Decred yield also depends heavily on network difficulty (as with most PoS systems).

At the time of this writing, Decred yields between 8 and 9% a year.

It is an excellent return for a top 30 market cap cryptocurrency with a great community, very active development process and a large user base.

Currencies with a large number of nodes usually yield less than smaller coins due to the high competition. On the other hand, lesser known coins have low liquidity and are hard to trade in high volumes.

Decred is able to offer high yield while offering high volume. It’s trivial to buy and sell DCR on all the major exchanges.

For this reason, Decred DCR is our Editor’s choice for best staking coin in 2020.

Decred Website

Neblio

Neblio’s current monthly yield is 0,8%

Yearly = 10%

Ranked 169 on CMC, not exactly a top performer in the passive income competition.

Neblio website

OmiseGO OMG

It is impossible to say how much OMG will yield.

Current OmiseGO staking calculators show 16% monthly yield.

This unreal number is likely to be the best case scenario, simulated for few current stakeholders and with no competition.

Once fully decentralized OmiseGO OMG reaches the exchanges, these figures should reach their correct values.

Visit OMG’s website for updates on when it’ll go fully decentralized

DASH

DASH currently yields approximately 0.5% per month and approximately 7% a year.

Excellent yield for a top 15 cryptocurrency. Although it has lower yield than others in this article, DASH has a significant user base and high liquidity.

Official Dash Website

NEO

NEO does not yield NEO coins directly, instead the staking rewards are paid in GAS.

Currently NEO yields 0,3% per month and 3,35% a year.

NEO is a top 20 crypto and has excellent liquidity and a significant user base, especially in China and generally in Asia.

NEO website

PIVX

PIVX currently yields 0.51% monthly and 6.55% annually.

It’s a top 100 cryptocurrency with an enthusiastic following. Liquidity might not be the highest around, but trading PIVX shouldn’t be too difficult either.

PIVX official website

LISK

LISK currently yields 0.66% monthly and 7.89% annually.

It’s a top 50 crypto with a large user base. Good liquidity.

LISK website

OkCash OK

With OkCash you can expect around 4.97% monthly and 60% yearly.

Ranking at 766 on CoinMarketCap, OK is low liquidity and low network difficulty coin.

OK Website

NAV Coin

NAV currently yields 0.33% monthly and 4% annually.

Ranking at 235, this cryptocurrency offers low PoS yield with low competition. Not your best passive income solution.

NAV website

STRATIS STRAT

One of the lowest yields among the currencies we’ve researched.

Currently at 0.12% monthly and 1.45% yearly returns.

A top 60 crypto, has good liquidity and a large user base. But the low yield may not make it the best bet for passive income.

Stratis website

Reddcoin

RDD currently yields 5.1% annually and approx. 0.42% monthly.

Reddcoin Website

Ethereum POS

Ethereum is still working on their PoS system. At the time of this writing it is impossible to estimate how much investors may expect from staking Ethereum.

Due to the high competition in this top ranked market cap crypto, expect numbers in the lower end of the spectrum.

A top 3 cryptocurrency, stay tuned to ETH’s website and other official channels for updates on when you can expect PoS to be deployed.

Official Ethereum Website

NXT

The lowest of all returns analyzed in this article.

NXT yields 0.03% monthly and 0.41% yearly.

Close to being a top 100 coin (ranking at 108 at this time), NXT has reasonable liquidity. Though, as you can see, it’s probably not going to be your choice for a passive income investment.

NXT website

Phore

Yearly return = 8.77%

Monthly return = 0.68%

Ranking at over 450 at the time of this writing, Phore is not the top performer in the PoS arena.

Phore website

What to look out for?

High competition coins yield less but offer great liquidity.

For instance, we mentioned that you should expect low returns from the upcoming Ethereum PoS system. This is because Ethereum has high liquidity and can be easily traded back and forth for U$ and Euros. That way, you can expect high network difficulty while staking Ethereum PoS.

Other coins we’ve looked at offer extremely high yields, but you should be careful about possible scams and low liquidity. Even if a coin yields hundreds of percent per year, you may not be able to cash it when needed.

As you can see, there’s a trade-off between network difficulty and liquidity. High yields mean low difficulty, but may also signal there’s low liquidity for that particular cryptocurrency.

Conclusion

We hope this article has given you an ample panorama of the PoS status quo. Using this information you can pursue the best cryptocurrency investments to build that much dreamed constant flow of income at the end of the month.

PoS is much safer than centralized investment clubs and is usually fully automated, running from your own equipment. Most delegation systems do not put your funds at risk when you stake your coins, but simply indicate the coins are blocked for staking. This makes it a secure way to participate in decentralized profits without risking your money, unlike other high yield schemes which have caused immense losses for investors in the past.

Notes

Investors should perform due diligence before investing in unusually high yield cryptos.

Information contained in this article does not constitute, and should not be taken as, investment advice.

All logos are Trademarks (TM) of their respective owners.