Staking on Bitvavo

Bitvavo is offering off-chain and on-chain staking services which we call together the staking services. The off-chain staking services gives you the option to earn rewards on available and idle account balances you maintain in your Bitvavo account. The on-chain staking services gives you the possibility that your digital assets actively participate in the transaction validation (similar to mining) process on a proof-of-stake blockchain. On these blockchains, anyone with a minimum-required balance of a specific digital asset can validate transactions and earn staking rewards. 

How does staking with Bitvavo work?

As long as you have digital assets on your Bitvavo account which are supported by our staking program, Bitvavo can stake for you:

• You only need to opt in for our staking services. There is no additional work necessary on your end.
• The services will apply for all available and supported digital assets on your account.
• You retain full ownership of your digital assets, which means you can deposit and withdraw your digital assets at any time.

For which digital assets are the staking services available?

Digital assets listed on Bitvavo which are currently supported by our staking services include:

ARK (ARK) ~ 1,07%
Axie Infinity (AXS) ~ 15,00%
Cosmos (ATOM) ~ 8,00%
Bitcoin (BTC) ~ 0,77%
Bitcoin Cash (BCH) ~ 1,02%
Cardano (ADA) ~ 2,75%
Ethereum (ETH) ~ 1,01%
ICON (ICX) ~ 3,00%
Komodo (KMD) ~ 2,00%
Kusama (KSM) ~ 7,00%
Livepeer (LPT) ~ 15,00%
LTO Network (LTO) ~ 5,00%
NEAR Protocol (NEAR) ~ 5,00%
NEO (NEO) ~ 0,52%
Ontology (ONT) ~ 0,51%
Phala Network (PHA) ~25,00%
Solana (SOL): ~ 4,0%
Sui (SUI) ~ 2,00%
Terra 2.0 (LUNA2) ~ 2,00%
Terra Classic (LUNA) ~ 2,00%
Tether (USDT) ~ 5,10%
Tezos (XTZ) ~ 2,50%
The Graph (GRT) ~ 3,00%
Tron (TRX) ~ 1,03%
USD Coin (USDC) ~ 5,10%
VeChain (VET) ~ 0,49%
Waves (WAVES) ~ 5,50%

If new digital assets are supported by our staking program, we will update the available asset list here.

Staking disclaimer

Bitvavo is not a bank and/or regulated as a bank or other depository institution. The staking services are not part of a depository or bank program, subject to the EU deposit guarantee schemes or covered by any other third party. You are only allowed to participate in the staking program with digital assets that are initially bought or deposited for the purpose of trading digital assets on the Bitvavo platform.

For further information read our Terms of Service and Risk Disclosure and feel free to contact our support team by using our live chat function or by sending an email to support@bitvavo.com.

How do rewards work?

Rewards are calculated on two factors:

1. The current rewards rate seen in your account.
   For some assets this reward rate might change over time (for example Tezos, where the reward is influenced by the total amount staked across the entire network).
2. The amount of the digital assets you hold in your particular wallet on a daily basis.
   To determine this amount, we look at the lowest amount you have had in your wallet on that specific day. Assets held in open orders are included in this calculation.

An overview of the current reward rates and the rewards received until now can be found here.

Can I trade or send funds while they are being staked?

While your digital assets are staked in our staking program, you will be able to trade and withdraw your digital assets participating in our staking program as you would for any other digital asset on your Bitvavo account.

Note: When you trade or withdraw the relevant currency to an external wallet, you may receive potentially less/no staking proceeds on it afterwards. Staking proceeds are related to the amount of 'stakeable' digital currency you own. If you have none of this on your balance sheet, you will not be able to benefit from it.

Can I opt out?

Yes, you can opt out for the staking services at any moment but will no longer receive staking rewards until you opt back in.

Why do the rates change? 

Project’s APY can fluctuate from different reasons, however, it will mostly go down overall and rarely recover.

Some of reasons why staking APY change and few drawbacks of the concept:

More people learn about the project, the less you will be making. The reward from the liquidity pool is going to be splitted between its participants; if more participants are involved, each individual will receive less, this applies to farming.
The coin you are staking is losing value. What would be your gain if you receive 100% APY on a coin that lost 90% of its value since you locked it in? There will be no gain, answering that to avoid confusion.
The rewards from staking your coins are new coins that will get into the circulation. If 100 coins staked bring you another 100 coins within 12 months, the circulating supply is now 200. If the supply increases and there is not enough demand, the price will follow, triggering point 2.

The rewards are paid in crypto not fiat, everything is within its ecosystem, more like a house of cards.

In conclusion, staking APY changes, depending of the project and how well established it is, beside that, there are few reasons that drastic APY changes will happen, and those are listed above.