Markets are down, and everyone is panicking—but not you. 🤝

Chances are you won't beat the market by swing trading in and out of your favorite cryptocurrencies, and it'd likely turn into a full-time job to even try.

That's why savvy long-term holders stake and earn yield on their tokens, so they can keep stacking their favorite coins even when the market drops.

Staking can put your crypto to work in a variety of ways, but the most common methods use your crypto to validate transactions on the blockchain or to supply liquidity for crypto trades happening on decentralized exchanges.

Staking for Network Validation (Proof of Stake):

On a proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain like Ethereum or Polygon, staking for network validation involves participants locking up a certain amount of their crypto holdings as collateral to validate transactions and create new blocks on the blockchain.

• Purpose: Staking for network validation is primarily aimed at securing the blockchain network and maintaining its operations. Validators are responsible for confirming transactions, and ensuring the integrity and security of the network.

• Rewards: Validators are rewarded with additional cryptocurrency tokens for their participation in securing the network. These rewards typically come from transaction fees and/or newly minted tokens.

• Risk: There is some risk associated with staking in PoS networks, particularly in the form of slashing penalties. Validators may lose a portion of their staked tokens as a penalty for malicious behavior or network downtime. Proof of stake validator are almost always ran by individuals, so if you're going to stake with a PoS validator, make sure you do your research on who's running it.

Staking for Providing Liquidity to Decentralized Exchanges (DEXs):

Decentralized exchanges (DEXs) enable peer-to-peer trading of cryptocurrencies without the need for a centralized intermediary. Staking to provide liquidity to a DEX involves users depositing pairs of tokens into liquidity pools so there's always enough of each crypto in the pool to facilitate trades between the two.

• Purpose: Staking for provision is aimed at enhancing the liquidity of trading pairs on decentralized exchanges. Liquidity providers contribute their assets to liquidity pools, enabling traders to execute trades seamlessly and efficiently.

• Rewards: Liquidity providers earn rewards in the form of trading fees generated by the DEX. These fees are distributed proportionally to liquidity providers based on their share of the total liquidity pool.

• Risk: The main risk associated with staking for liquidity provision is impermanent loss. Impermanent loss occurs when the value of the deposited tokens changes relative to each other while they are in the liquidity pool. This risk is inherent in providing liquidity and is something that liquidity providers should consider.

Giddy provides 1-tap access to both staking for network validation and staking for liquidity, so you can start consistently earning fractional shares of Bitcoin, Ethereum, USDC, and many other cryptocurrencies regardless of market conditions.

While staking isn't without its risks, long-term crypto holders almost always opt to stake with trusted validators or DEXs so they can collect that extra 5, 10, or even 20% growth that comes from putting their crypto to work with one of these decentralized protocols.

Ready to start growing YOUR crypto? Try Giddy today.