Quote from gastro_pod
Staking is definitely different from personal loans. But as I understand it, you are still lending your tokens to someone else—in this case, an entity performing PoS. So I think my point stands in that, as a “asset”, cryptocurrencies do not provide cash flow. Is that fair?
With respect to staking, there is considerable risk in doing this, no? Risk of slashing, risk of price volatility, and risk of entrusting an exchange with your coins—obviating the entire supposed security benefits of cryptocurrencies.
You made me laugh:). The entire world knows crypto is risky and still speculative.
OK, to your questions above - without turning this into part 2 of Crypto staking 101 - the answer is I can make all of that go away for certain coins.
1. If you know anything about crypto you know that there are private wallets - I can use my wallet to stake, the coins never leave my wallet.
2. What price volatility? You stake because you already know that you want to hold this coin. Prices go up too, not just down while you stake, right?
3. Slashing - my, my you do know how to poke don't you:). I had to look up that term because I had forgotten what it means, but yes I am fully aware of that risk because goodness gracious I do my best to understand the risk potential of everything I do in crypto.
It is zero risk with ADA in my opinion, is a rare occurrence in general and I feel confident that the coins/pools I choose are safe.
So there you go - key is to be selective in choosing your coin and your staking pool.
May I ask what risk level you would assign to the staking pool for Ada at the University of Wyoming?
I say it is zero and I bet their smart college students optimize the hell out of the returns:).
Not to mention that in the case of Ada which has the most decentralized network of any coin has a truly dedicated community behind it that has been staking for years - cheering on the slow, rigorous process of a promising but very long term project - would hunt down and scalp any would-be slasher or hacker within the hour.
Charles Hoskinson the founder was one of the originals along with Vitalik Buterin who each built their own network. ETH - Vitalik.
My personal take on staking altcoins
In general - probably not, too much trouble and not enough reward for the potential exposure to risk. This may change as interoperability, security, and ease of transactions overall continue to improve.
For now, I see no point in risking my coins for 6% or entertain the idea of staking Kava at 20% on Kraken.
The better the coin the lower the return - rewards become diluted by too many participants... TMI, sorry.