Staking

Staking is locking up crypto to help secure a proof-of-stake network in return for rewards; on Ethereum it means depositing ETH to activate a validator, which loses ETH if it misbehaves. ethereum.org's staking page says a validator of your own needs at least 32 ETH and can hold up to 2048 ETH, proposes and checks blocks, and earns ETH rewards for honest work, while any user with any amount of ETH can take part in some way. Validators that go offline miss rewards and lose small amounts, and provable misbehavior such as signing two conflicting blocks leads to slashing, in which part of the stake is destroyed.

In airdrop marketing the word is often used loosely for locking tokens in a product. Binance's HMSTR Launchpool let users lock BNB and FDUSD over three days from 23 September 2024 to receive HMSTR. Offers that promise guaranteed staking returns fit the FTC's warning that only scammers guarantee profits or big returns.