Chainlink has announced that early eligibility for $LINK staking has now gone live. They are allowing users from across web3 to use their wallets to check eligibility to see if they are able to begin staking $LINK during early access or general access. The move is expected to be a big benefit for node operators on the popular blockchain network. 

Early Eligibility

Those with early access to the staking pool will have the ability to stake up to 7,000 $LINK tokens which will help the protocol become more efficient as it helps scale how quickly nodes can receive jobs and the payment fees attached to those transactions. 

In order to become an early staker, Chainlink has devised three categories for users: hodlers, builders, and educators for community members that have been active on the Chainlink network. This strategic categorization will help Chainlink build a staking pool that is representative of the entire Chainlink community.

Node operators on the other hand will be able to stake up to 50,000 $LINK tokens with a minimum of 1,000 required because of their importance to the network with a total of three million $LINK tokens planned to be staked until v0.2 launches. 

Benefits

For individual stakers, benefits are provided as cryptocurrency rewards and incentives for depositing liquidity into the staking pool’s protocol. These rewards are based on staking time and the amount deposited, with additional rewards accumulating after one year of staking.

However, improvements to the overall network are the most significant:

1. Increased Security

   One of Chainlink’s primary goals with staking is to heighten their network security and establish a platform that is safe enough for businesses to grow an economy on. Without this, it would be impossible to develop an ecosystem. 

   This security is achieved with slashing and loss protection services that allow funds on the network to be secured safely in order to prevent bad actors from stealing funds.

2. Community Participation

   Another key aspect of staking is how Chainlink aims to utilize its community. Chainlink wishes to use community monitoring to help keep track of issues to prevent major problems from occurring. 

   Node operators will also be able to delegate specific roles to willing members of the community to help them operate the network more smoothly.

3. Sustainable Rewards

   As the staking pool grows and the network becomes more popular, Chainlink will be able to provide reward incentives to stakers through a mixture of subsidies and partnerships with the protocol. 

   This will allow staking to remain beneficial to users. They know their deposits are doing more than just sitting in a locked smart contract without any personal benefit.

4. Empower Node Operators

   Also, staking will help improve the network with efficiency rankings that will help determine which nodes are selected for the Oracle networks. By being active stickers, node operators will be able to improve the network over time with a framework that will increase the efficiency of their nodes.

Is staking safe?

While popular in 2021, staking has quickly become an unattractive prospect for many web3 users. Now that we’ve seen so many protocols and companies crash, it is harder for users to feel comfortable with locking away all of their liquidity into smart contracts that could collapse in an instant. 

Fortunately, it seems Chainlink has come up with a framework for staking whichthat is sustainable and reliable for the future of web3 business after assessing these problems several times.