Staking

An alternative security mechanism to a Proof of Work network’s mining activity. Validators commit their coins to be randomly selected by the network protocol at specific intervals to create a new block on the blockchain. This process enables new blocks to be produced without reliance on specialized and energy-consuming mining hardware. While mining requires powerful and expensive hardware, staking simply requires investment in the cryptocurrency token itself. A validator’s “stake” (tokens) incentivizes validators to support network security, else risk losing their stake.