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The next big leap for Ethereum liquid staking: The staking landscape

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Imagine a world where everyone, regardless of their background, can easily access and participate in the revolutionary world of Ethereum. A world where decentralized applications empower individuals, and the potential for innovation knows no bounds. Against a highly equivocal and chaotic macroeconomic landscape, this is the world that the prophets of Ethereum dream of.

But little do they know this world is like an unrealized dream. Why? Let’s dig deeper.

Reflecting on the Ethereum liquid staking landscape

Centralized liquid staking protocols are at the forefront of the liquid staking revolution on Ethereum, and it shouldn’t come as a surprise. Why? Because they are highly scalable — thanks to the centralized validator set that they have. The biggest liquid staking protocol on Ethereum currently has a limited node operator set of 29 operators. It must then be a no-brainer that they hold a hegemony over the network. Any protocol claiming to be decentralized but running its operations as a business is also able to offer much higher standards of composability. While this composability that is offered to users is a feature, it can be counter-productive as well — primarily because of the systemic risks this can cause.

On the flip side, decentralized protocols do exist, but they are highly unscalable. And thus, they have a fraction of ETH staked in them compared to what is often staked via the centralized ones.

While decentralized protocols have attempted to reduce the minimum capital required to run a validator node from 32 to 8 ETH, that is still a sizeable amount for the wider ecosystem. Admittedly, this does open up opportunities for a wide number of stakers to start staking on the network, however, we contend that 8 ETH is still a sizeable amount. This reintroduces the problem of scalability, and thus a significant portion of ETH gets staked through a select group of professional node operators. This leads to the further concentration of staked ETH. The presence of these centralized node operators across different liquid staking protocols undermines the censorship resistance of the underlying network.

The inflow of ETH post-Shapella is a good indicator of users’ liquid staking preferences. One would hope that a lot of the incoming ETH would go to decentralized liquid staking; however, the figures state otherwise.

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Making Ethereum liquid staking scalable

One of the biggest challenges for the existing liquid staking protocols today is that they are tuned for either scalability alone or decentralization alone. The ones that are tuned for scalability alone are not decentralized, and the ones that are tuned for decentralization are not scalable. There are several examples of this — from protocols having a concentrated node operator set to those having high minimum capital requirements to run validator nodes for Ethereum.

While there have been attempts by these protocols to move towards either making their architectures scalable or decentralized, making that is quite difficult given the huge amounts of ETH that are already staked via them. Moreover, these protocol-level changes require a lot of internal deliberations (at-least for decentralized protocols) before they are rolled out.

Moreover, a core objective of any business is to make sure that they hold the hegemony over the industry to persistently retain that. This is reflected by the feigned attempts at a willingness to decentralize — but then having them falling on their head. Perhaps, there is no reason why this would happen. A centralized liquid staking protocol often operates as a business whose core objective is to compromise decentralization to achieve profitability. While I do not condemn the latter, I do feel that it comes — almost always — at the cost of decentralization.

What Ethereum needs

Ethereum prophets often call for the need to diversify staking across a multitude of protocols. And perhaps, it wouldn’t be remiss to credit those protocols that have emerged that are attempting to realize that vision. However, I must provide a caveat that any emerging protocols need strategic and critical analysis. No one would want shabby architecture being polished and presented as a resilient solution and risking the stability of Ethereum. I believe that there are two things that need immediate attention to drive growth to Ethereum liquid staking:

  • Reducing the minimum capital requirements to run a validator node: This is perhaps easier stated than executed. Reducing the minimum capital requirements incentivizes a wider spectrum of users to participate in network validation.
  • Building censorship resistance: This is perhaps common knowledge, but it often gets overlooked. With the pace at which the macroeconomic landscape is evolving, it is a dire need for protocols to integrate solutions that build the censorship resilience of the protocol. This is akin to hedging against potential future slowdowns in validator architecture and building a high-performant architecture that keeps the network secure.

Admittedly, I find myself at crossroads while writing these solutions because, while I assert that being aware of the existing challenges as well as the solutions is of paramount importance, it is not enough to persistently echo them. It is essential that we engage in extensive research and relentlessly test and build solutions that help solve these challenges and build a resilient architecture.

Mohak is the founder of ClayStack. He is an entrepreneur, investor, and a leader in the staking and liquid staking space.

Mohak is the founder of ClayStack. He is an entrepreneur, investor, and a leader in the staking and liquid staking space.

Cryptocurrency

Crypto Price Analysis September-20: ETH, XRP, ADA, BNB, and SOL

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This week, we take a closer look at Ethereum, Ripple, Cardano, Binance Coin, and Solana.

cryptopost_friday_cover

Ethereum (ETH)

The market has had a great week so far, and Ethereum closed with a 9% price increase. On Wednesday, the Fed cut the interest rate by 0.50%, which turned out to be extremely bullish for crypto. Since then, ETH has also managed to break above $2,400.

With buyers back, the momentum is shifting bullish again. The current target for this cryptocurrency is $2,800, which will also act as resistance. The former resistance at $2,400 is now a key support, and as long as it is not lost, buyers have the advantage.

Looking ahead, Ethereum is finally showing signs of recovery after months of difficult price action in which bears dominated.

ETHUSD_2024-09-20_14-07-02
Chart by TradingView

Ripple (XRP)

XRP increased by 4% this week but appears to lag behind other market leaders such as Ethereum or Solana. This could be because it already broke its resistance at 54 cents last week, and buyers may be distracted by other opportunities at this time.

Nevertheless, momentum remains bullish on this price action, and XRP needs to make a higher high to maintain it. A clean break above 60 cents can restore confidence and see the price attempt a test of the next key target at 68 cents.

Looking ahead, XRP may be preparing for its next major move, especially if the overall market remains bullish.

XRPUSDT_2024-09-20_14-06-34
Chart by TradingView

Cardano (ADA)

So far in September, ADA has been bouncing between the key levels, but this could be its most important opportunity to break the resistance at 37 cents. While the price closes the week with only a 1% increase, optimism is high that Cardano can finally have a breakout.

The past two weeks saw the price find good support around 33 cents, and sellers were unable to push ADA below that. This improved confidence in the price action, and buyers returned.

Looking ahead, the biggest challenge for this cryptocurrency is to break above 37 cents. That would put ADA back on the offensive to recover the losses incurred since March 2024.

ADAUSDT_2024-09-20_14-06-05
Chart by TradingView

Binance Coin (BNB)

Binance Coin remains a great performer and closed the week with a 6% price increase. This allowed buyers to keep the price well above the $500 support and even aim towards $600, which is the current target for this uptrend.

Buyers are dominating right now, which shows promise for a sustained uptrend in the coming weeks. Moreover, on the 3-day timeframe, the MACD made a bullish cross, which is picking up momentum. This favors a continuation of this uptrend.

Looking ahead, BNB is found in a strong position based on its price action, which shows that it is ready to challenge the highs from earlier this year.

BNBUSDT_2024-09-20_14-07-45
Chart by TradingView

Solana (SOL)

Solana is our strongest performer this week, with a 12% price increase. As soon as the resistance at $134 was broken, buyers rushed to this cryptocurrency, and the price shot up.

The current rally is coming on strong buy volume, which could see SOL test the resistance at $164 in the next few days. That would only encourage buyers further.

Looking ahead, Solana is back in the spotlight, and market participants seem to prefer it over other major altcoins. If this market rally continues, Solana may be among the first to benefit.

SOLUSDT_2024-09-20_14-07-23
Chart by TradingView
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Cryptocurrency

Bitcoin (BTC) Price Touched $64K, Solana (SOL) Explodes 9% Daily (Market Watch)

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Bitcoin’s price rally that started after the US Fed reduced the interest rates on Wednesday took the asset to a multi-week peak of over $64,000 hours ago.

The altcoins also followed suit, with ETH breaking above $2,500 and BNB soaring past $570.

BTC Kept Pumping

This highly anticipated business week actually started with a retracement on Monday that drove the primary cryptocurrency from over $60,000 to under $58,000 in hours. However, the bulls quickly resumed control of the market and pushed the asset to over $61,000 ahead of the Wednesday FOMC meeting.

Once it concluded that the US central bank announced a 0.5% cut in the key interest rates, BTC went on a rollercoaster with several movements up and down. Still, the bulls came out stronger, at least for now, and initiated an impressive rally for bitcoin.

As reported yesterday, the asset tapped $63,000 for the first in three weeks. However, it kept adding value and briefly exceeded $64,000 earlier today for the first time since late August.

Nevertheless, its ascend has been halted for now, and BTC now sits about a grand lower. It’s still 2% up on the day, which has pushed its market cap to $1.250 trillion. Its dominance over the alts, though, has been slashed to 54.3% after soaring past 55% yesterday for the first time in almost four years.

Bitcoin/Price/Chart 20.09.2024. Source; TradingView
Bitcoin/Price/Chart 20.09.2024. Source; TradingView

SOL, AVAX on the Run

Most altcoins were trailing behind BTC in the past few days, but have charted more impressive gains today. The pack is led by Solana and Avalanche. Both of them have surged by around 9% to $151 and $28, respectively.

Chainlink has added 5% of value, and so has Ethereum. In fact, ETH has skyrocketed to a multi-week peak of its own at $2,550.

The most impressive daily increases come from the likes of TAO (15%), APT (12%), CORE (12%), JUP (11%), SUI (11%), and LDO (11%).

The total crypto market cap has gained another $70 billion overnight and is above $2.3 trillion on CG now.

Cryptocurrency Market Overview. Source: QuantifyCrypto
Cryptocurrency Market Overview. Source: QuantifyCrypto
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BTC, ETH Shot Up to 3-Week Peaks as ETFs Recorded Net Inflows

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The cryptocurrency market saw some long-time coming revival after the United States Federal Reserve cut the interest rates on Wednesday for the first time in about four years.

The two largest digital assets went on a run, jumping by roughly 10% in the past few days.

BTC Price Rises Amid ETF Inflows

The 11 spot Bitcoin ETFs have enjoyed investors’ demand and attention ever since they went live for trading in January this year. Their negative and positive streaks in terms of net flows have influenced the underlying asset’s price to the extent that BTC tapped a new all-time high just two months after they saw the light of day.

As with most markets, investors’ perspective changes with current macro and micro-economic conditions and news. As such, it was interesting to follow how they would act in this particular week because of the Fed’s FOMC meeting that took place on Wednesday.

After all, this was the first interest rate cut in the States since 2020, which also means that it was the first since the inception of the BTC ETFs. In the days leading to the meeting, US investors poured over $500 million in net inflows to the financial vehicles but withdrew $52.7 million on Wednesday.

However, their attitude changed once again yesterday – the first full trading day after the rate reduction. Data from FarSide shows total net inflows of $158.3 million. Ark Invest’s ARKB led the pack with $81.1 million, followed by Fidelity’s FBTC with nearly $50 million. There were no reportable outflows, but BlackRock’s IBIT saw no action.

In the same timeframe, BTC’s price skyrocketed from $59,000 (on the rate-cut day) to just over $64,000 earlier today before retracing slightly to $63,400 (as of now).

Bitcoin/Price/Chart 20.09.2024. Source: TradingView
Bitcoin/Price/Chart 20.09.2024. Source: TradingView

Even ETH ETFs See Inflows

Unlike the Bitcoin ETFs, the Ethereum counterparts have failed to attract real interest, recording very few days in net inflows since their start in late July. In the days ahead of the FOMC meeting, investors took out $9.4 million on Monday and $15.1 million on Tuesday. Another $9.8 million was withdrawn on Wednesday.

However, the tides turned for the Ethereum ETFs as well yesterday, with total net inflows of $5.2 million. Interestingly, the entire amount went into BlackRock’s ETHA, and the rest of the ETFs saw zero reportable flows.

ETH’s price also soared alongside BTC. It had dumped to $2,300 during the FOMC meeting on Wednesday but earlier today neared $2,575 (a 12% surge) for the first time since late August.

Ethereum/Price/Chart 20.09.2024. Source: TradingView
Ethereum/Price/Chart 20.09.2024. Source: TradingView
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