Recently Ethereum reported to be at the top in terms of most market capitalization in staked crypto assets. This came as yet another achievement for the smart contract compatible blockchain network which recently witnessed the successful event of Merge upgrade. The upgrade took place on 15th September, 2022, making the blockchain transition from proof-of-work to proof-of-stakes consensus mechanism.
According to the data from a prominent crypto staking data aggregator, Staking Rewards, Ethereum (ETH) stands at the top position with most value staked in terms of USD. This amounts to more than 19.75 billion USD worth ETH.
Meanwhile, potential ETH killer Solana (SOL) is holding second position with an overall staked market cap of more than 12.9 billion USD. At the same time, CArdano (ADA) is one step down from Solana (SOL) in third position with its 11.1 billion USD worth staked market cap.
The list is further followed by BNB Chain (BNB) with over 5 billion USD and Avalanche (AVAX) with approx 4.6 billion USD in staking market cap. Polkadot (DOT), Cosmos Hub (ATOM), Tron (TRX), Polygon (MATIC) and Near Protocol (NEAR) followed the list ahead till the top ten most staked crypto assets.
By the time of writing, Cosmos (ATOM) is offering highest staking rewards of approx 17.91% while Cardano (ADA) is offering lowest of 3.6%.
Staking Emerged as New-age Method in Crypto
In 2012, blockchain developers Sunny King and Scott Nadal brought the concept of Staking. Their idea was an answer to counter the problem of high energy consumption in bitcoin mining.
In the process of Staking, the related crypto asset gets locked for a specific period of time and it lets the investor earn yields in return. Primarily, it acts as a method of transaction validators to increase the probability of them validating a transaction and earn mining rewards. Validator with the most number of staked assets chosen by the algorithm to add the new block in blockchain.
Source: https://www.thecoinrepublic.com/2022/09/20/ethereum-eth-is-the-most-staked-crypto-asset-solana-sol-and-cardano-ada-follows/