Topic: Is Bitcoin staking a thing? (Read 451 times)

If you can accept the risk of losing your coins while staking, then you can continue to try staking Binance or Freebitco.in. Staking can be a solution for you in generating interest and you are still waiting for the market to return to normal. So when the market returns to normal, the price goes up, and you have accumulated a certain amount that will give you a profit.

Binance and Freebitco.in provide opportunities for people who want to stake with a Flexible system, meaning you can withdraw your funds. For more information, you can read the terms and conditions on each website.

Interesting to use this type of source showing on a bitcointalk post, definitely a sigh to see and I enjoyed it thank you. I watched the netflix one, and it was definitely a horrible job done, not because of anything I disliked about the details of it or anything, nor have I ever heard about that exchange before so it's not a personal thing.

It was just done in a way that was a very bad documentary, could have gone into more broader sense of what's going on. However I agree, losing your coins is a big possibility in crypto if you are not careful about it, tons of people lost their coins and more people are losing it every single day because they are not careful enough.

There is no Bitcoin on-chain staking at all, those are offering to stake just centralized or internal staking system. This means you have to trust them with your funds, no matter who are they. Still, they are able to freeze your funds at any time for any reason. So I don't see a perfect reason why should you stake with them and risk your Bitcoin? Not too much return at all, rather you may choose the good altcoin that is on-chain staking. But still, there is a risk of losing value. So just stake what you can afford the loss.

It is technically possible. We have Lightning Network. It is possible to lock coins in some evil channel, on some 2-of-2 multisig. Then, it is possible to enable staking and add some rules for moving coins in that channel only if you will meet some weird conditions, like staking rules. Then, you have two options: you can agree with the rules of that second node, or you can close your channel. If two parties want to make staking a real thing on Bitcoin, then they can create a payment channel, where one person will get closing transactions with more and more coins over time (by using locktime). Then, it is just staking, but technically wrapped over multisig. And it is a clear way of showing the true nature of staking: there is someone that can get some coins, and there is someone who has to agree to pay for that. And no coins are produced out of thin air, so other users are unaffected (and not taxed by coin inflation or other stupid solutions from other chains, where staking is implemented in a more obscured way).

However, it is true that centralized websites have nothing to do with real staking.

I'm using other platforms to stake stablecoins, such as BUSD, UST etc. Despite BUSD having the highest APY in Binance's option, that's not the point though, I want to maintain my BTC as BTC, staking them would be an option to keep my money as Bitcoin and earn some more in the process. Exchanging to BUSD or any other coin just to earn $30-40 in a 2-3 month period is certainly not worth the risk exchanging my Bitcoin, since in a month or two, its value could possibly increase by $5.000, which would certainly bring a way higher profit than a mere 13% in staking.

I've seen the documentary. Apparently what happened is that QuadrigaCX started sending the Bitcoin from their clients into other exchanges worldwide, while still showing to the users that their Bitcoins were safely deposited there. Then, they started buying and selling altcoins in those exchanges, and eventually they basically lost all the money.

It's not 100% clear what happened to the founder, but it seems that the funds were clearly gone. Not sure if that's what you would call an exit scam, but a scam nonetheless.

Interesting watch, specially if you don't know the details of what happened. Also interesting to hear directly from the people that put their money there and lost it.

We'll have to disappoint you if you want to stake Bitcoin. Because Bitcoin uses a Proof-of-Work consensus method, it cannot be staked. Technically, it only works with Proof of Stake coins. Bitcoin is not among them. Ethereum 2.0, and Icon are a few examples. The Ethereum network is actively moving to the Proof-of-Stake algorithm. Ethereum may already be staked; at the time of writing, the expected yearly payout is 7.3 percent.

Source: https://stormgain.com/blog/crypto-staking#:~:text=Bitcoin%20staking%20If%20you%20want%20to%20stake%20Bitcoin%2C,Proof-of-Work%20consensus%20algorithm%2C%20making%20it%20unavailable%20for%20staking.?msclkid=c0c31161cb9a11ec98d4cd77e825aa29

I stuck in binance and get a apy about 6%, if we plan to make bitcoin as a long -term investment then the best thing is used for staking, and in my opinion staking in spot exchanges is safer than in dex because currently there are many cases of hacking wallets, especially in the Metamask browser.

Most of us have heard of this case, but I have not yet had the opportunity to watch this documentary - because I doubt there is something in it that I don't already know. However, it should be noted that this case became very intriguing due to the fact that the owner traveled to India one day and died there, and was the only one who had access to private keys. There has always been suspicion of exit scam, and as far as I know, it still exists today given the suspicious circumstances of death.

The risk of losing your coins when you use any of these companies is quite high.

There's a new Netflix documentary called "Trust No One" that tells the story of QuadrigaCX, a Canadian exchange that lost $250 million of customer's funds. It closed down in 2019.[1]

A New Zealand exchange, Cryptopia, was hacked twice, once in 2019 and once in 2021 and lost millions of dollars.[2]

In 2021, two Australian exchanges, myCryptoWallet and ACX, stopped allowing withdrawals and then ended up shutting down. Customers lost millions.[3]

In DeFi, which covers a lot of the platforms that offer "staking" and other rewards, almost daily you see new reports of hacks, theft, and losing funds around the world in many companies and projects[4]. This also covers big names like crypto.com[5], and huge amounts. Recently (March 2022) Ronin lost more than half a billion dollars[6].

Personally I wouldn't feel comfortable having my bitcoin in any of these companies. One of the main advantages of Bitcoin is that you don't need permission from a 3rd party to use your money. Once you send you coins to a 3rd party, they get to decide what you can do with them. Also, it's all great when you deposit your Bitcoin in these platforms, but when you try withdrawing you usually have to wait. And sometimes you never see your coins again.

[1]: https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/trust-no-one-the-hunt-for-the-crypto-king-trailer
[2]: https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2021/02/20/cryptopia-exchange-currently-in-liquidation-gets-hacked-again-report/
[3]: https://www.fool.com.au/2021/12/07/crypto-investors-missing-millions-after-2-aussie-exchanges-collapse/
[4]: https://rekt.news
[5]: https://rekt.news/cryptocom-rekt/
[6]: https://rekt.news/ronin-rekt/

If it's bitcoin, staking is another term for time deposit to them.

They earn interest and the interest you earn is little than what they've earned from the principal amount you've lent or deposited to them. There are platforms that have higher rates than the one on the example.

But do you trust these platforms to hold your bitcoins for you? Better not to stake and firm hold it on your possession.

Yes, why not? If only I don't use my bitcoins regularly I would have tried staking long time ago but sadly I haven't yet since there are much important uses for my bitcoins than simply idling it in a wallet or to a website.

The pay for busd is much higher compared to btc but I understand that you only have a btc however you can always trade your btc for busd and start using that busd vault. The decision is still up to you, if you still prefer btc over any other coin you can stake it and receive a much lesser return. I guess that is better than receiving nothing at all? If you have some extra btc on your other accounts outside binance, you can deposit it because I heard that the more coins you stake, the more the rewards you're going to get.

FreeBitco.in doesn't have any lock-in period as far as I know, thus, you're free to withdraw whenever you want. In Binance however, unless you opt for a flexible lock-in period, which provides you with a terrible APY if you do, you're pretty much with locking your money for a while. In the best case scenario, that's for 30 days in some altcoins, 60 for BTC and 120 for ETH and BUSD, which is way too far-fetched.

I'd never hand them my money for 4 months, that's outrageous.

If I'm not mistaken, freebitco offers the possibility of withdrawing funds within 24 hours of the first deposit, which means that in this case there is much more flexibility in the sense that each user can withdraw their funds at any time. Although the interest rate is half as low, such an option somehow seems safer to me, although it is a very subjective opinion.

In your example and a deposit of 0.10 BTC and a time period of 2 months, the earnings are only $50, but if you want to withdraw from the exchange, about half of that profit would go to the service fee - because even though the service is provided by a third party, all deposits/withdraws take place through Binance?

Why people do boggle up theirselves on entrusting their funds on a particular platform whether an exchange or gambling site or others on where they are really that keep eyeing on that 4% or more APY ?

If we do just make use of our common sense then we would really able to see that holding our coins on our own personal wallet would might able to get 4% more increase or profit in a year time

without bothering or stressing up yourself of potential risks on losing those funds because the platform had been hacked or goes scam.

They are offering the service for a reason, as you've said, if it wasn't used, then it wouldn't be offered. Anyway, we're talking about the "Staking" section on Binance, which in Bitcoin's case, is offered through the Venus, so hypothetically, I can find the same vault in the Venus platform.
The same thing also applies to any coins you'd be staking, however. 8% isn't that great of a deal, that's for sure (8.19% to be exact), in order to risk your Bitcoin. Similarly, if something happened to Beefy for instance, or any similar decentralized platform, we'd be screwed too.

It's certainly not worth the risk, that's also my opinion, but I was mostly curious to see what others think of it. If we divide the 8.19% APY with 365 days,  equals 0.0224% daily yield. Multiply that with 60 (which is the default lock-in period) and you'll get the 60-day yield in percentage, which equals 1.344%. Thus, supposing that someone locks 0.10 BTC for 60 days, he'd get 0.00132 BTC in return (1.32% of 0.1) which is about $50.

Spare bitcoin seems spare only for some time until money crunch comes in.

I am sure the OP already knows the problems of giving the control over coins to a third party. Staking is something that became popular in the post-ICO era parallel to stablecoins. To be honest, I have invested in the cryptogames bankroll investment with coins that I could spare at one time and the return was good, unfortunately I could not continue because CG has shut down this feature.

I would say that if one is feeling like taking the risks they can go for it, but invest only that much money that they can afford to lose. Freebitco.in is a reputed site with a long history, but the chances of getting hack are as good as Binance has. This is completely a personal choice.

On this forum it might seem like most of the users are red-pilled to not invest in this. But in reality, this service is being used by many users, who dont visit this forum.

You already mentioned it that you have some spare bitcoin which your not using and besides is an increment to you. I would actually say you should try look into other trading platform, I mean other exchangers to know their APY maybe you could have more value over there to Binance exchange.

A long time ago I saw about staking, I was doing query, but I didn't invest any more for what would be risky. I originally wanted to do flexible staking but seeing a lot of negative feedback about staking here I have a little doubt about it now. Even then, Many banks do not have 8% APY , so I don't think staking would be bad if you have 8 percent APY, unless it's completely secure.

If I were you, don't let this Binance use your Bitcoin. You'll be growing your money for just only 8% while Binance makes it double or even more. Without giving the assurance and guaranteed safety while depositing your Bitcoin on them, you're taking a high risk. You'll never how these people would do with your deposit.

Don't get fooled by the 8% offer, I'd rather keep my Bitcoin safe on my wallet rather than be curious about receiving a few bucks while there is a chance that we can lose them all at any time. If we agreed on this term, then you are ready to lose it. Honestly, Binance is losing its credibility now.

Binance had been in this staking of a thing for long. Although the staking APY do fluctuate most time based on the Market. This is the best time to stake your Bitcoin if you are not using it rather than leaving it in the wallet and waiting for price to go up. A return of 8% APY is good and that is  good amount of money if you have big fund you want to stake. The market is down now and staking your Bitcoin is gonna be a good idea so you can leave there and watch the reaction of the market.

Anyone who understands what Bitcoin is, would never accept any offer of this type because it nullifies everything that Bitcoin exists for. 8% is tempting given what traditional banks offer today, but with the aforementioned, the risk of an investor running out of everything is something to consider.

In addition, the chance that you will earn more just by keeping BTC in a non-custodial wallet is quite high, although here of course there is a difference in possible profit expressed in fiat - from getting your BTC + 8% more after a year using such services.


I also have a smaller amount on that faucet and get low interest per day, and that's the only way I put my BTC at some risk. Yet it is something else entirely, and I could survive to wake up one day and that faucet no longer exists.

I don’t think it’s staking, as that would imply an on-chain action. More likely it’s the result of lending your funds. With an 8% rate, you have to assume the risk is pretty high when it comes to Bitcoin. I’m sure you probably have to agree to some terms that you could lose all of your money for participating. The thing about lending schemes like this is that they work well until they stop and your funds are gone. Once coins disappear from exchanges people might find there’s nothing to get their principle back.

Or maybe they don't care; simple as that. They don't care about the hacked coins, they continue to operate normally. They don't care to hand out the users' data to surveillance companies. They don't care to charge 50,000 sats, even if the transaction could be settled with 2 zeroes less. They don't care to treat bitcoin as non-fungible.

They don't care as long as there's a profit. That being said, whoever uses Binance to stake is completely irresponsible and reckless.

Binance claim that funds are "safu", but we have no proof of that, one may only hope that's true. We've seen so many exchanges (even the top ones) turning to shit so just because Binance is at the top at the moment it doesn't mean that one day things won't go south and then the fun will start.


I wonder what would happen if everyone tried to withdrew their bitcoin at the same time, would they have enough bitcoin on their hands to do that? I am not so sure.

Just made a little meme for this occasion

I wouldn't call it "staking" because it is also misleading since we have staking shitcoins (eg. PoS coins). It is more like an investment and I personally hate centralized exchanges and any kind of options they provide. It is just too risky, they can be hacked or shut down at any moment. Not to mention that historically CEX has had a short life when they remain on top and when they fall, all their options fall in profitability too.

On the other hand, the rest of businesses that accept investments (like gambling sites) are better in my opinion. Like freebitco.in specially since it is old and the profit is reasonable not something crazy big! There is also the benefit of lack of KYC which is going to always exist in CEX.

Maybe Binance is able to sufficiently manage credit risk such that depositors' coin is safe. My understanding is that, to date, Binance has not had sufficiently large loan losses that they had to impose a "hair cut" on their depositors.

I think it is most important for anyone considering to deposit money in the product that Binance is offering to understand what they are doing, and the risks involved. If they understand the risks, they can make a decision based on their own personal risk tolerance.

Bro it is up to you to decide if you are ready to take the risk of trusting a centralized exchange to put your btc up for staking. Many forum members are against centralized exchanges and leaving your funds in their hands so obviously you won't get the response you are looking for.
However, leaving your btc idle in a wallet waiting for the next bull market is not profitable but safe, additional 8% to your stack is not bad only if you can find a decentralized exchange which offers this service, perhaps you have to look at decentralized exchanges and what they offer.

I think the same. The extra interest does not justify losing my private keys for a year. If we expect Bitcoin to give 50-100% average annual returns over the next few years, an extra 8% is nothing for the risk of not being in control of it. So for me staking Bitcoin is not a thing.

Can you predict when Binance will be hacked, so you can withdraw your funds before the hack happen? No.
Can you make sure SAFU amount can recover all entire Binance's clients? No.
Can you know how much the possible amount the hacker can stole? No.

No matter what the reputation is, how old the site and how popular it is, any centralized platform which offering so called Bitcoin staking or lending is 100% not safe.

8% does not sound so enticing to me. And knowing that you will have to lend your Bitcoin to them for a year, that is too risky for me. Since you mentioned that you have a small amount of Bitcoin, how much is that? Is it as small as 0.5 BTC, 0.1 BTC, or 0.05 BTC? How much is 8% of your BTC? Is it worth risking for one whole year? And is the 8% fixed or is it 'up to' 8%?

Notwithstanding Binance's SAFU, what I know is that any centralized exchange cannot actually guarantee your Bitcoin's safety.

Have you just read the post I made above?

The risk warning even says that Binance acts as a platform to showcase the products, they are not responsible for any losses due to some vulnerabilities. Losses due to Binance exchange hacking aside. Do you think the SAFU you so much talk about will help out in case there was a DeFi vulnerability leading to losses?

Binance is offering fixed and flexible savings when it comes to BTC. Since binance is a reputable exchange with SAFU, I am more confident to have my idle BTC to put under their savings services. They may not have the government insurance but Binance has SAFU in place. I already tried that before but I entered my BTC under flexible savings, because you can withdraw anytime your BTC, if in case you need it. But you need to wait for few hours to reflect on your account. If you think you don't have urgent needs for your BTC, you can very well put it in fixed savings, just select the duration.

I have seen Binance exchange introduce this type of system a long time ago. Those who have Bitcoin BNB and USDT will get interest instead if they keep staking without keeping it in their account. Those who want to buy and invest in Bitcoin or Others Coins, instead of buying and staking, we will get more profit.If you think risk is ​​here, you can do USDT, you will get more APY here.

You are not actually "staking" your coin. It is more reasonable to say that you are lending your coin to Binance, so that they can lend out your money. This is not unlike how traditional bank deposits work.

As with traditional bank deposits, there is the risk that the bank will make a sufficiently large number of bad loans that prevent the bank from paying their deposit holders. However unlike most traditional bank deposits, there is no government insurance mechanism to step in to protect depositors in the event of a bank failure.

Why should you hand over your precious Bitcoin to get "staked" in some other platform in the first place when you can just securely and secretly Hodl your coins?

Those protocols you think are safe usually end up with vulnerabilities too. I have seen a number of them. Even Binance put up a warning on the staking page because they know it. It means your Bitcoins are not safe and not worth the 8% APY. Bitcoin price growth alone got you covered if you want to earn something.

Source: https://www.binance.com/en/defi-staking?asset=BUSD_Flexible_VENUS

You misinterpreted what I mean, the reason I never bothered to check Binance was because I haven't used a decentralized exchange in the past 1.5 years, my Bitstamp account even got blocked for inactivity and failure to verify my account. Binance on the other hand, used to have 0.10% in trading fees, I don't know if that changed, but 1.5 years ago, that was way lower than Bitstamp's.

I'm only using DeFi platforms to stake, such as Beefy, and decentralized exchanges such as 1inch, Bisq or Pancakeswap.

Oλά Good 🇬🇷

Bitcoin staking doesn't exist! It is not a POS coin so technically bitcoin staking isn't possible. The website you are talking about is basically taking out loan from you and paying an interest against it. If anything bad happens to that website, then you money will be gone! That's not the case with staking. So rather than calling it bitcoin staking, it can be called as P2B loans with all sorts of risks associated with it.

The platform you have mentioned is quite old. But I personally wouldn't recommend you to save your bitcoins with them unless it is a very insignificant amount and you will be all ok if the bitcoins are lost forever. otherwise, please stay out of such investment plans.

Staking is a way to earn small portion of interest from your staked coins within a certain period of time ,
so since you said you have Bitcoin currently on Binance exchange and you aren't making use of it anytime soon according you,
it's wise you stake it and Earn the 8% interest While it's still on the exchange than leaving it in the exchange just like that.

Yes, loaning money increases liquidity for the bank/casino/whatever, so staking is a thing as long as money is a thing.

What you've neither bothered to investigate is which exchange you should use. Even if you had no idea what's a decentralized exchange, neither of the disadvantages one does have with centralized exchanges, why don't you use another exchange? It is known that Binance charges extremely high fees, about 100 times more than it should, for no fucking reason. They're perpetually ripping you off. And there's more than money; read the link.

There's nothing serious to be said in here. If you hand out your money, they're no longer yours. Sure, 8% APY is a sweat profit, but that's until the casino/exchange bankrupts, disappears, gets hacked, pretends to have got hacked etc. This doesn't sound a good deal to me.

Hello there,
A friend of mine reached out to me yesterday about Binance's staking options. I knew that Binance offered such an option, however, I never bothered to investigate much further. My friend wanted to opt for the BUSD vault, with a current APY of 13.3%, which isn't too bad, although, what caught my attention is the option to stake Bitcoin. The APY it's offering is at 8%, supposing you're not using your Bitcoin, and it's just sitting in your wallet, would it be something that you'd opt for?

FreeBitco.in also offers a savings option, providing you with a 4% interest on your BTC deposits. I currently have a small amount of BTC and was wondering if it would be any of worth staking my BTC through Binance (8%), since I'm not actively using it.

I'd appreciate any advice from more experienced users, thank you in advance.




Supposedly, Binance offers this staking option through the platform of Venus, we're not talking about the Savings section of Binance.