Seeking Yield by Staked — Issue #4
Staked Named Game of Stakes Winning Validator, Tim Ogilvie Speaks at New York City DeFi Meetup, Staking Incentive Best Practices — February 2019, & More
This is the fourth issue of Seeking Yield, a weekly update about the most interesting things happening in crypto asset staking and lending.
Staked Named Game of Stakes Winning Validator
We are proud to announce that Staked has been named a winning validator in the Cosmos Game of Stakes, a novel research experiment that was designed to simulate an adversarial environment in a BFT PoS network.
We were never jailed, meaning that we maintained continuous uptime and never engaged in double-signing. These are the two most important factors when choosing a validator.
We would also like to thank the Cosmos team and congratulate the other winning validators.
Read the full post here.
Tim Ogilvie Speaks at New York City DeFi Meetup
Tim Ogilvie, co-founder and CEO of Staked, was on a “Transitioning from Legacy Finance to Decentralized Finance (DeFi)” panel last night at a New York City meetup.
It was a great evening full of discussion about the benefits of the U.S. financial system to the developing world, financial primitives, and the future of DeFi.
Here are some photos from the event:
You can watch the live stream here.
We look forward to sharing details about more Staked events!
Staking Incentive Best Practices — February 2019
Staking Incentive Best Practices is a new series that analyzes staking participation rate and the most effective ways to design a proof-of-stake network.
Our first piece hones in on why we think Tezos and EOS, two seemingly similar projects, have resulted in such different network participation rates.
In future issues, we will discuss block rewards, lock-up periods, slashing penalties, and other variables that influence participation rate.
We live on this data and are proud to provide the crypto community with data-driven analysis about the effectiveness of crypto-economic incentives.
Read Staking Incentive Best Practices — February 2019 here!
Cosmos Hub Mainnet Launches in ~ 10 Days
The Game of Stakes is officially over and the Cosmos Hub will launch in the coming weeks.
Phase I: Network gains stability
The purpose of this initial phase is to deal with any technical hiccups as the chain finds stability. Given the risk of state being reverted, it is highly recommended that you do not arrange to trade Atoms. If there are issues or vulnerabilities with the Cosmos Hub prior to the enablement of transfers, arbitrary state rollbacks should be expected.
Phase II: Transfers enabled
Once the chain is believed to be sufficiently stable, bonded Atom holders vote on whether Atom transfers should be enabled. If the vote rules in favor of transfers and the proposal is accepted, transfers are enabled.
Phase III: Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) enabled
When IBC is enabled as part of the core module library within the Cosmos-SDK, application-specific blockchains that are built using the Cosmos-SDK or Tendermint BFT are able to connect to the Cosmos Hub and interoperate with other connected blockchains. End users can also then transfer various tokens and NFTs directly from one IBC-connected chain to another IBC-connected chain without a third party.
Read the full post here.
Set Protocol Introduces Strategy Enabled Tokens
Set Protocol recently announced Strategy Enabled Tokens, which are tokenized trading strategies facilitated by the Set Protocol smart contract system.
The goal of Strategy Enabled Tokens is to make crypto portfolio management both easier and more accessible.
Strategy Enabled Tokens allow crypto investors to:
- Gain exposure to passively managed index products that continually rebalance
- Automate trading strategies like dollar cost averaging, stop losses, long/short, and buying the dip
Technical details and the mainnet launch plan will be featured in a separate white paper and blog posts.
Read the full announcement from Set Protocol here.
Algorithmic Crypto Trading
The inefficiency of crypto markets makes it a very attractive and potentially lucrative space for algorithmic traders.
Let’s examine two types of trading algorithms: execution algorithms and market making algorithms.
Execution Algorithms
The purpose of an execution algorithm is to transform the state of a portfolio while simultaneously minimizing costs.
There are typically three layers to an execution algorithm:
- The Macrotrader: Breaks up parent orders into smaller child orders that are gradually deployed
- The Microtrader: Decides whether each child order should be a market or limit order, as well as the price that an order should specify
- The Smart Router: Decides how to route executions to trading venues
Market Making Algorithms
Market making is a staple of financial markets. Market makers provide liquidity to market participants in exchange for compensation.
There are three perspectives to consider when designing a market making algorithm:
- Market Maker’s Own Perspective: Represented by their inventory
- Market Takers’ Perspective: Represented by the order flow
- Other Market Makers’ Perspectives: Represented by the order book
Read the full piece by Kevin Zhou if you are interested in learning more about algorithmic trading in crypto.
Current Staking Rewards
We currently support Decred (DCR), Tezos (XTZ), Livepeer (LPT), Dash (DASH), EOS (EOS), and Factom (FCT).
Don’t see your favorite crypto asset? Cosmos, Algorand, Loom, and NuCypher are coming soon. We will keep you updated as we add support for new assets.
Sign up and follow the directions here for more about staking with us!
Current ETH Lending Yields
There are both on-chain and off-chain crypto asset lending solutions.
Below are various crypto asset lending solutions and annual ETH lending yields.
Sign up here to learn more about lending with Staked.
About Staked
Staked helps institutional investors reliably and securely compound their crypto by 5% — 100% annually through staking and lending. Staked runs validation nodes for proof-of-stake currencies and offers access to on- and off-chain lending options that provide an annualized yield of in-kind currency.
If you enjoy Seeking Yield or are a fan of what we are building at Staked, give us a shout on Twitter, LinkedIn, or tell your friends and colleagues.
