While interest rates may be going up and inflation ticks higher you are probably not going to be a beneficiary of seeing these higher rates reflected in the interest you get on your checking and savings accounts. The upside is that with almost negative bond yields in the past several years rates have almost certainly seen their lows. We all have checking and savings accounts and have become accustomed to receiving little or no interest on them. This was almost acceptable when inflation was basically non-existent.
However, as we all have seen and felt inflation has reared its ugly head and has hit 7% with no signs of letting up. As such, your checking and savings accounts are eroding in value each and every day. Even if you look at the best savings accounts in the U.S. as compiled by NerdWallet the annual interest percent of the top five is a depressing 0.50%.
If you’re one of the millions who have decided to invest in cryptocurrency you could start earning 10% or more on the crypto you have. This is essentially interest on the money you have invested in cryptocurrency, and is referred to as staking in the jargon of crypto. To use a simple illustration, if you had $10,000 in your savings account and earned an annual interest rate of 0.50% as stated above, you would receive a whopping $50 after one year.
However, if you invested the same $10,000 in a cryptocurrency that paid 10% interest or staking you would receive $1,000 after a year. Huge difference. Like just about everything crypto-related, staking can seem confusing at first.
It’s actually easier to do than you might think, and you’re free to unstake your crypto if you want to trade it later. Once you know how to stake crypto, you can start earning passive income from it.
Let’s try to keep it simple and look at a brief description on how staking works. The reason your crypto earns rewards while staked is because the blockchain puts it to work. Cryptocurrencies that allow staking use a “consensus mechanism” called Proof of Stake, which is the way they ensure that all transactions are verified and secured without a bank or payment processor in the middle. Your crypto, if you choose to stake it, becomes part of that process.
So if earning interest of upwards of 10% a year through staking cryptocurrency grabs your intention, the next question is how to get started. Just like selecting a stock that pays dividends you wouldn’t want to base that selection on the dividend payout alone. There should be a fundamental reason to own the security that pays the dividend. This is the same mentality that should be used to select which crypto to stake. Like stock selection, this is the most important aspect of determining your staking success.
All the major crypto exchanges like FTX, Crypto.com, and Gemini et al will let you stake the proof-of-stake currencies so you don’t have to worry about selecting the right exchange. It’s always tempting to buy when you see a crypto offering 100% or more in yearly staking rewards, but many of these are poor investments that could plummet in price. You should only buy a crypto if you feel confident it’s a good long-term investment. Look at staking as the cherry on top and don’t make it the only reason you buy.
There are lots of proof-of-stake cryptocurrencies you can consider. Here are a few of the biggest:
Once you’ve selected the exchange and the crypto that you want to stake it is as easy as a few mouse clicks to initiate the process. As mentioned, the major crypto exchanges will allow you to stake a large number of coins with relative ease. However, there are other options like staking pools, which consist of crypto funds that investors have pooled together to earn more staking rewards.
To stake through a pool, you typically need to transfer your crypto to a crypto wallet first. If your eyes are starting to gloss over at this point, don’t worry, just stake on one of the big exchanges. Five popular options are the following:
Kraken’s staking rewards are available for 10 cryptocurrencies, and they go as high as 20% per year, which is tops among the major platforms.
Crypto.com offers its services to U.S. users largely through its mobile applications, and the staking and rewards programs vary widely depending on which app you use. Its USDC stable coin currently offers a 14% APY.
Gemini was founded by the Winklevoss twins, best known for an acrimonious relationship with Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook. The twins accepted a $65 million settlement from Zuckerberg, but may be having the last laugh with the growth of Gemini. Gemini has 43 cryptocurrencies for which rewards are available, with rates ranging from 0.74% to 8.05% APY.
TradeStation, known mostly as a platform for trading stocks, also offers a cryptocurrency platform. Among its offerings is a lending program that pays interest on cryptocurrency. While its selection is somewhat limited, it offers five cryptocurrencies which are eligible for rewards up to 6% per year.
BlockFi has 13 cryptocurrencies that have annual rates as high as 9.5% and allow users to withdraw these funds at any time.
Staking crypto is a fairly straightforward process, especially now that several exchanges offer it. Once you’ve figured out what you’ll buy, it’s as simple as a few mouse clicks to start getting annual interest of 10% or more.
