We are proud to announce that Krystal Earn has now integrated with Lido Finance and Ankr, giving you even more options to earn passive income on your idle assets.
Both platforms provide liquid staking services for a variety of tokens, including:
- BNB
- ETH
- MATIC
- AVAX
- FTM
Krystal Earn now gives you a one-look overview of passive income opportunities from staking providers (Ankr, Lido) in addition to existing lending providers (Aave, Compound, Venus).
With passive income opportunities for over 100 cryptocurrencies across 7 blockchain networks (Ethereum, BNB Smart Chain, Polygon, Avalanche, Fantom, Arbitrum and Optimism), you can easily compare amongst all passive income strategies to get the best yield for any token!
What is liquid staking?
Liquid staking allows you to still have access to your funds, even though you have staked (aka locked) your funds with a validator.
A liquid staking provider (like Lido or Ankr) would provide you with a new token that represents the amount that you have staked with either provider.
For example, if you stake ETH on Lido, you will receive the stETH token.
While staking locks up your funds, liquid staking gives you an opportunity to perform DeFi activities with these liquid staking tokens, while earning staking rewards at the same time!
You can find out more about staking cryptocurrencies in our comprehensive guide here.
How is liquid staking different from lending?
Here’s a summary table on the major differences between both passive income strategies:
| Liquid Staking | Lending | |
|---|---|---|
| Type of tokens | Multiple DeFi use cases | Illiquid, specific to platform |
| Yield sustainability | Depends on staking rewards of the network | Depends on supply and demand for that token |
Types of tokens
When you are supplying your tokens on Aave, Compound or Venus, the tokens that you receive (e.g. cTokens or ATokens) are only specific to the platform you’ve supplied with, and are rather illiquid.
In contrast, liquid staking tokens allow you to use these tokens for various DeFi activities like swapping or staking in a liquidity pool with another token.
Yield sustainability
The interest rates that you receive when lending out your tokens will depend on the supply and demand of that asset. If there is greater demand for the asset with a low supply, the interest rates offered will be higher and vice versa.
Meanwhile, when you stake your assets, you will be staking with a validator that processes transactions on a Proof-of-Stake network.
You will receive your rewards in the form of staking rewards, which is determined by each network.
As more of the tokens are staked with validators, the staking yield may decrease and vice versa.
What tokens will I receive when I stake with either provider?
The tokens that you receive after staking depends on which liquid staking platform you used to stake.
Lido
If you stake ETH or MATIC on Lido, you will receive ‘st’ tokens (either stETH or stMATIC).
stETH
The redemption ratio of ETH and stETH is 1:1. The amount of stETH will increase every day.
stMATIC
The redemption ratio of stMATIC will continue to increase, while the quantity of stMATIC tokens that you own remains the same.
This means that when you unstake stMATIC to receive your MATIC tokens, you will be receiving a higher amount of MATIC tokens than your initial stake, based on the staking APY.
Ankr
For Ankr, you are given the option of choosing reward-earning (aXXXb) or reward-bearing tokens (aXXXc).
Reward-earning tokens (e.g. aBNBb, aMATICb)
These tokens work in a similar way to stETH, where the number of tokens will increase every day.
Reward-bearing tokens (e.g. aBNBc, aMATICc)
These tokens work in a similar way to stMATIC. The redemption ratio increases while the quantity of tokens remains the same.
What can I do with these liquid staking tokens?
You can use these liquid tokens on certain DeFi platforms, such as depositing them into liquidity pools and earning extra yield.
Ankr has a full list of the different liquidity pools you can deposit your liquid staking tokens.
You are also able to deposit stETH and stMATIC into liquidity pools on Curve or Harvest Finance.
How do I stake on Krystal?
Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to perform liquid staking:
#1 Select the token you wish to stake
To access our staking feature, you can go to ‘Earn’ tab on Krystal.
You are able to view the various options available for each token.
For both ETH and MATIC, you can choose to stake with either Lido or Ankr. Meanwhile, you can only use Ankr to stake BNB, AVAX and FTM.
*Note: If you are looking to stake MATIC, you will need to have MATIC on the Ethereum network, and not the Polygon network.
You can use our bridge function to bridge MATIC from the Polygon network to Ethereum.
#2 Stake your tokens
If you are using Lido to stake your tokens, you can convert them to stETH or stMATIC right away.
Meanwhile, if you are staking with Ankr, you will need to choose whether you would like to receive the reward-bearing or reward-earning token.
Some of these tokens may have a minimum stake amount.
| Token | Minimum Stake On Ankr |
|---|---|
| ETH | 0.5 ETH |
| AVAX | 1 AVAX |
| BNB | 0.502 BNB |
| MATIC | 1 MATIC |
| FTM | 1 FTM |
Don’t forget to leave some funds behind to pay for gas fees! You will need to pay this fee for each staking and unstaking transaction that you perform.
After you have successfully staked your tokens, you should start accruing rewards at the next rebase!
How do I unstake on Krystal?
To unstake tokens that are currently staked, you can go to the My Portfolio tab on Earn,
and unstake from there.
You will need to pay some gas fees for this transaction as well.
Here are some things to note when you’re unstaking your assets:
- It is currently not possible to unstake stETH or ETH on Ankr (aETHb or aETHc). This will only be possible once the Shanghai Upgrade is completed on the Ethereum network (~ 2023)
- When you are unstaking your assets, you may go through an unbonding period. You will only receive your assets in your wallet once the unbonding period is completed.
While your assets are being unbonded, they will be placed under the ‘Unstaking In Progress’ tab.
Here are the unbonding periods for the different liquid staking tokens:
| Token | Unbonding Period |
|---|---|
| ETH | NA (Only possible after Shanghai Upgrade) |
| MATIC | ~ 3-4 days |
| BNB | ~ 7-10 days |
| AVAX | ~ 4 weeks |
| FTM | ~ 1-35 days |
Conclusion
At Krystal, we’re committed to bringing you the best and most secure passive income sources for your tokens. With a one-look overview, you can now easily compare amongst all passive income strategies of any token, and choose one that gives you the best yields!
This feature is currently available only via our website. We will soon launch the same for our Android and iOS applications. Stay tuned!
Apart from Earn, we provide a whole variety of DeFi services, including Swap and Bridge, in the convenience of just one platform!
🔍 Navigate the DeFi Space NOW with Krystal!
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