Staking
Locking up a digital asset to help run and secure a proof-of-stake blockchain, in return for a share of the rewards the network pays.
In a proof-of-stake system, validators post the network's native asset as a bond, run software that proposes and attests to blocks, and receive newly issued units plus a share of transaction fees. The bond is what makes misbehavior expensive: provably invalid actions can trigger slashing, which destroys part of the stake, and downtime typically incurs smaller penalties. Holders who do not run infrastructure can delegate their stake to a validator and share the rewards net of commission. Exiting is rarely instant, since most designs impose an unbonding period or an exit queue, so staked supply is not immediately tradable. The word is also used loosely for depositing tokens into a rewards contract unrelated to consensus, which carries entirely different risks under the same label.
На практике
On Ethereum a validator deposits 32 ether and runs software that attests to blocks, with rewards accruing until the validator goes through the exit process.
Распространённое заблуждение
Staking rewards are not interest paid by a borrower: most of the reward is newly issued supply, so staking largely maintains a holder's share of supply rather than adding external income.
Показатель, которому это соответствует
The share of a token's supply currently committed to securing a proof-of-stake network.
Лимиты: Numerator and denominator often come from different sources with different definitions, and using total supply rather than circulating supply can shift the answer by tens of percentage points for the same chain on the same day. Staked no longer means illiquid: liquid staking tokens let a holder…