Frictionless staking addressing lock-in periods and rewards payout is here

cointelegraph.com:

Bitcoin (BTC) first drew attention to the proof-of-work (PoW) consensus algorithm, a process that demonstrated users could maintain a secure, decentralized blockchain if only at the expense of large amounts of energy. As history would have it, Bitcoin grew in popularity and faced trouble scaling to accommodate the sheer number of transactions needed. Recognizing the gap in technology, alternatives were developed, the most popular being proof-of-stake (PoS).

With staking, holders of a crypto asset could participate in the transaction validation process by locking their funds. Each participant would receive compensation in proportion to the amount staked, eliminating the need for highly intensive processes. Although a positive step for user adoption, the process is still far from ideal.

At present, one of the major concerns with staking is the unbonding period, which may require an investor to wait up to 28 days (for some protocols) between the time their token is sold to when it is returned to a user’s wallet. Of course, the unbonding period was proven to be just the beginning, with some centralized exchanges adding lock-in periods on top of the wait, some of which may add on another 30 days or more. The consequence? Given cryptocurrency’s volatility, some investors have been forced to sit idle as the prices of their assets tank before their eyes.

For this reason, liquid staking has become popularized for ensuring investors have access to their funds even when they are being staked. Under this setup, liquidity was improved, since funds could remain in escrow but were no longer “locked” and inaccessible like they otherwise would be with PoS staking. To achieve this, the team piloting the liquid staking project introduced a