Introducing StakeEasy: First privacy-preserving staking solution

StakeEasy is an on-chain privacy-preserving liquid staking solution for Secret Network. Users can stake their $SCRT token on StakeEasy and get a SNIP-20 token $seSCRT in return which increases in value as the staking rewards gets accumulated on the platform. $seSCRT can be transferred to another wallet or can be used in a DeFi protocol to either provide liquidity or to use as a collateral.

Current state of staking

Secret network is a delegated proof of stake chain. In such a type of chain, a user holding native coins($SCRT for Secret network) can stake their native coins to a validator enabling the user to earn a passive income in form of staking rewards accrued from processing transactions by the validator.

Rewards given to the token delegator are in form of $SCRT tokens and the delegator has to stake the rewards manually in order to compound them. StakeEasy provides the layer of smart contracts between delegator and validator which auto-compounds the rewards after a fixed interval without requirement of delegator intervention which saves delegator’s gas fees.

There is a 21 day lock period and once the $SCRT is delegated, it cannot be used elsewhere during the period of delegation. StakeEasy provides user the ability to unstake immediately.

Delegators generally stake to validators with a high amount staked already. This leads to the top validators getting most of the tokens and negatively affects decentralization of the network. Furthermore, the information available to delegators from the list of validators is limited to a few parameters only, so a delegator has limited information to assess the choice.

How StakeEasy makes the staking experience better

1. Auto compounding

StakeEasy has automatic compounding of staked tokens at a fixed frequency. This benefits the delegator as no manual input required from their end, so it saves the delegator’s effort and gas fees spent on staking those rewards.

2. Validator diversification

StakeEasy introduces a model to stake not just to one but to multiple validators at once(tokens divided equally amongst them). These validators are chosen based on a set of different parameters to make sure that the right set of validators is chosen for staking. More details on this will be shared in upcoming blog posts.

3. Dynamic validator set

Keeping the same validators as the validator set for a long period of time is not ideal as the value of parameters for each of the validators keeps on changing over time and can change drastically over a longer period of time causing the initial ranking to be obsolete.

StakeEasy keeps this set of validators as dynamic in nature and ranking is recalculated frequently enough to not have the validator set obsolete and also not make too many re-delegation transactions.

This would also help the platform mitigate the risks such as:

• Validator disconnecting it’s services and the delegator being unaware of such event and rendered not being able to earn staking rewards.
• Validator changing commission.
• Validator being down for an extended period of time.

4. Liquid staking

Staking is made liquid by issuing liquid staking tokens as a representation of the value of staked tokens. This means that the liquid token now holds the value equal to the value staked plus the rewards earned and is in the possession of the delegator so it gives the delegator the opportunity to invest this liquid token in some other protocol causing better use of the assets.

This also means that the delegator can easily move the staked assets from one wallet to another without waiting 21 days.

5. DeFi integration

Liquid staking token opens up the door to multiple DeFi integration opportunities such as providing liquidity to DEXs, taking out a loan from a lending protocol or doing leveraged staking, no loss lottery while earning staking rewards from network staking at the same time.

Want to learn more? Join the StakeEasy community

Stay tuned across our socials for further updates.

Discord: https://discord.gg/gKjzApDstD

Twitter: https://twitter.com/StakeEasy

Website: https://stakeeasy.finance