3 years ago
211 The stakes have now been upped for Polkadot and Cardano, with both networks, continuing to dominate the staked capitalization rankings. While these networks extend their staking dominance, Tezos has plunged from the top ten by staked capitalization.
Based on data acquired from StakingRewards, Cardano is currently the biggest blockchain in terms of staked value, with about $26.4 billion worth of ADA currently allocated to securing the network. Interestingly, Cardano’s entire capitalization is around $36.6 billion, which means that 73% of circulating ADA are being staked.
StakingRewards projects that Cardano stakers are earning a yearly reward of 7.22%. the second-biggest crypto asset by staked value is Polkadot coming at $22.7 billion worth of DOT locked, representing nearly 64% of its circulating supply. The average annual staking rewards for DOT are estimated at over 13%.
Polkadot and Cardano currently represent 7.9% of the $620.6 billion in crypto assets that are designated for staking throughout the entire crypto-asset industry. While the two networks have long-dominated the staking industry by locked value, the other leading assets have experienced significant disruptions to their rankings in recent weeks.
Solana (SOL) has now exceeded Eth2 to take the third spot for staked capitalization, with about $9.4 billion in capital staked. SOL staking and authentication needs the asset to be time-locked up and then taken out of circulation which might explain the current discrepancy, highlighting why its staked capitalization surpasses its nearly $8 billion market capitalization.
The SOL stakers are now generating 11% annually.
Top ten staking assets by staked capitalization: StakingRewards
Tezos, the once king of staking, has plunged way to the eleventh position with a staked cap of $3.5 billion yielding 5.5% per year. In mid-December 2021, Tezos was ranked fourth based on a report at the time. In terms of general capitalization, XTZ has dropped from the top ten to rank 35th, according to Coingecko.
Eth2 today ranks as the fourth-biggest staked asset with $8.2 billion. Based on the ETH 2.0 launchpad, there are about 3.9 million ETH locked into the Beacon Chain deposit contract. Nevertheless, just 3.4% of circulating Ether has been put into staking, suggesting that there is still considerable room for Eth2’s staking cap to grow.
While Ethereum stakers are now earning over 7% annually, ETH’s forthcoming chain merge is expected to considerably enhance rewards as stakers start collecting fees from the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).
staking rewards likely to at least 2x with EVM gas fees
I expect ~25% staking APR immediately after the merge
more rewards → more staking → more economic securityhttps://t.co/6YTnaGGNyA
— Justin Ðrake 
(@drakefjustin) April 19, 2021
Ethereum 2.0 researcher, Justin Drake, projects that staking rewards will at least double with the chain merge, estimating rewards may spike to 25% per year. The remaining networks that make up the top ten rankings for staked capitalization are USDC, Terra, Tron, Avalanche, Algorand, and Binance Smart Chain.
