Chainlink, the industry-standard decentralized computing platform, announced today that Chainlink Staking v0.2, the latest upgrade to the protocol’s native staking mechanism, is now live. The launch of the v0.2 upgrade begins with a nine-day Priority Migration period for existing v0.1 stakers during which they can migrate their staked LINK and rewards to v0.2, and will progressively expand access to a broader scope of participants, with Early Access and General Access starting on December 7 and December 11 respectively. Chainlink Staking takes place at https://staking.chain.link.
v0.2 features an expanded pool size of 45,000,000 LINK in total, representing 8% of the current circulating supply, increasing the accessibility of Chainlink Staking to a more diverse audience of LINK token holders. Staking is a core initiative of Chainlink Economics 2.0, which is bringing a new layer of cryptoeconomic security to the Chainlink Network. Specifically, Chainlink Staking enables ecosystem participants, such as node operators and community members, to back the performance of oracle services with staked LINK and earn rewards for helping secure the network.
“The security of the Chainlink Network has enabled over $9T in transaction value, something that has been recognized by the world’s leading financial institutions through their adoption of CCIP and other Chainlink services. Because we are seeing a consistent increase in the amount of value secured by and paid for over the Chainlink Network, it’s increasingly important to improve the cryptoeconomic security of the network. Staking v0.2 introduces important new security features and sets the system up for even further growth in the year to come,” stated Chainlink Co-Founder Sergey Nazarov.
While v0.1 served as the initial Staking program, v0.2 has been rearchitected into a fully modular, extensible, and upgradable Staking platform. v0.2 takes learnings from the v0.1 release and builds upon its foundation by focusing on the following goals:
- Greater flexibility for Community and Node Operator Stakers via a new unbonding mechanism, while retaining a secure non-custodial design.
- Improved security guarantees for oracle services secured by Chainlink Staking via the slashing of node operator stake.
- Modular architecture to iteratively support future improvements and additions to Chainlink Staking, such as expansion to more services.
- Dynamic rewards mechanism that can seamlessly support new external sources of rewards in the future, such as user fees.
After the Priority Migration period ends on December 7, 2023 at 12PM ET, LINK token holders who meet at least one predefined criterion on the updated Early Access Eligibility List will have the opportunity to stake up to 15,000 LINK in v0.2, provided that the v0.2 pool has not yet been filled.
After Early Access ends on December 11, 2023 at 12PM ET, the v0.2 staking pool will open to General Access, at which point anyone will have the chance to stake up to 15,000 LINK, provided that the v0.2 pool has not yet been filled.
Eligibility to Chainlink Staking v0.2 can be verified using the Early Access Eligibility App.
About Chainlink
Chainlink is the industry-standard decentralized computing platform powering the verifiable web. Chainlink has enabled over $9 trillion in transaction value by providing financial institutions, startups, and developers worldwide with access to real-world data, offchain computation, and secure cross-chain interoperability across any blockchain. Chainlink powers verifiable applications and high-integrity markets for banking, DeFi, global trade, gaming, and other major sectors.
Learn more about Chainlink by visiting chain.link or reading the developer documentation at docs.chain.link.