The most anticipated event involving the Chainlink Staking feature’s induction into the Ethereum network finally took place on 7th December 2022.
Currently, the Ethereum network is facilitating Chainlink users in staking their LINK via the Staking v0.1 service. The newly added feature is an essential part and parcel of Chainlink Economics 2.0.
Why Staking Feature Is So Crucial?
Chainlink Staking features were introduced mainly for the purpose of improving the project’s ecosystem and ensuring stability.
Chainlink Staking induction in Ethereum mainnet would primarily benefit users by offering them passive incomes as rewards upon staking of LINK token. This would subsequently encourage ‘honest behavior’ in the network.
The reward program introduced through staking is also multi-purpose. For instance, the reward package aims at incentivizing nodes so that the nodes can improve the efficiency of data integration in the oracle for the longer term.
Staking Already Provoked High Demand
Soon after the integration, a total of 7,000 LINK tokens (equivalent to $53,000 in value) were staked into the system. Most importantly, this relatively high number of LINK tokens was brought in by a couple of users only.
It goes to show that despite the following being low, the users are willing to invest great amounts of funds for the purpose of staking.
It may however be noted that on 7th December, access to Chainlink Staking v0.1 was restricted to a limited community. However, the staking feature was to become fully accessible to everyone by 8th December 2022.
Now, anyone wanting to gain access to the staking service for LINK will be able to do it without facing any problems.
Staking Capped At 7,000 LINK Tokens
The newly added staking feature was also capped at 7,000 LINK Tokens staking initially. This meant that the user intending of staking LINK coins could not stake more than 7,000 LINK Tokens.
It was also clarified by Chainlink that the capping principle would apply to an account (i.e. an address only) and not the user.
This meant that if a user has more than one address, then he can stake 7,000 LINK tokens against each address. This way, users will be able to circumvent the 7,000 cap but things do get quite tricky from there.
Currently, Staking v0.1 is capable of housing an overall capped supply of staked LINK tokens not exceeding 25 million.
Users can stake their LINK Tokens into the supply to a maximum of 22.5 million collectively on a ‘first come first served’ basis.
However, the remaining supply of 2.5 million has been designated for staking by the node operators only. Over time, they will be participating in the staking program to make it an even bigger success.
More Than 11 Million LINK Staked Already
By the time of this writing, over 11 million LINK tokens have already been staked under the Staking v0.1 feature. This means that roughly $75 Million worth of LINK tokens are now part of the capped supply of 25 million.
Only half of the supply i.e. 11.25 million remains to be filled up by stakes other than the node operators. The project also noted that about 2,600 addresses contributed to the capped supply.
It was further confirmed by the project that there were at least 950 addresses that staked 7,000 LINK tokens each. While there were more than 700 addresses whose staking comprised over 1,000 LINK tokens.
This indicates that out of 2,600 addresses, 1,675 were of those users who were interested in taking more than 1,000 LINK tokens.
It can hence be determined that the demand for staking is high and the capped staking supply would very soon reach its limit.
It may however be noted that none of the users would be able to obtain rewards until a specific time.
Chainlink clarified that rewards shall become due after the launch of the next version i.e. ‘Staking v0.2’. The launch of v0.2 is expected in a period of 9 to 12 months accordingly.