Last year, Chainlink took a significant step for its local token LINK with the launch of its staking pool. This made the LINK Token, which was considered weak in terms of generating benefits, significantly more useful. Now, the team has shared the details of the new version they want to launch at the end of the year. So, what can LINK investors expect?
Chainlink (LINK) Latest News
Staking is a key initiative of Chainlink Economics 2.0, which brings a new crypto-economic security layer to the Chainlink Network. Staking allows ecosystem participants such as node operators and community members to support the performance of oracle services with staked LINK and earn rewards for helping secure the network. It also makes the LINK Token more useful. The Chainlink team has monopolized the blockchain-based oracle space. They even have agreements with Swift for payment infrastructure. However, their local token has remained weak in the shadow of all these great achievements. Chainlink’s native token, which provides price feeds for almost all major DeFi platforms, has been quite weak.
Last December, the first beta version of Chainlink Staking was released, consisting of a 25 million LINK stake pool that supports the crypto-economic security of ETH/USD data flow in Ethereum. Both Community Stakers and Node Operator Stakers in v0.1 earn staking rewards by participating in a decentralized alert system around performance requirements.
Chainlink New Version Coming
The next version of Chainlink Staking (v0.2) will be released in the last quarter of this year with an initial expanded pool size of 45 million LINK. The launch of the v0.2 beta update will gradually expand access to a wider range of participants, starting with a Priority Transition period for existing v0.1 stakers, before entering Early Access and then General Access.
While v0.1 served as the first Staking program, v0.2 has been restructured as a fully modular, scalable, and upgradable Staking platform.
So, what’s changing?
- The code base of Chainlink Staking v0.2 has been redesigned to function as a modular smart contract set. This modularity allows for extensive upgrades, including new features and configuration changes, to be implemented without requiring a complete transition to a new smart contract set.
- At any time, stakers can start withdrawing staked LINK from v0.2, initiating a waiting period of a few weeks. After the waiting period is completed, a few days of a withdrawal window begin, during which staked LINK can be withdrawn. If the staked LINK is not withdrawn during the withdrawal window, it automatically re-enters v0.2.
- v0.2 has a new LINK reward mechanism designed to further incentivize the stability of the staking pool, support the security guarantee provided by staking, and provide more flexibility in staking rewards. Attributed Rewards are earned by stakers during their participation in staking and consist of Claimable Rewards and Locked Rewards. Claimable Rewards can be withdrawn by stakers at any time without any penalties. Locked Rewards convert to Claimable Rewards during a period known as the ramp-up period. The ramp-up period is a few weeks long and starts at 0% and linearly increases up to a possible reward rate of 100% when a participant stakes for the first time. The percentage of claimable Attributed Rewards is proportional to the time spent during the ramp-up period.
- The reward rate calculation for v0.2 has been redesigned to encourage a fully filled Staking pool and enhance support for future staking reward sources (e.g., user fees). While v0.1 had a fixed reward rate (i.e., a single rate for all Community Stakers regardless of the pool’s occupancy rate), v0.2 will have a variable reward rate.
- Chainlink Staking v0.2 offers more crypto-economic security by supporting the ability of Node Operator Stakers, who provide security for staked LINK, to reduce a portion of their stake.
