Staking Startup Claims 'Up to 30%' Returns for Just Holding Crypto

Blockchain staking-as-a-service startup Battlestar Capital says customers can earn a return of “up to 30 percent” annually on their idle cryptocurrency holdings.

Revealing the news exclusively to CoinDesk on Tuesday, Battlestar said that it has partnered with cryptocurrency lending startup Celsius Network to launch a large-scale staking service that provides the potentially high returns. While the announcement did not provide a lower guide for the estimated returns, its website currently states that returns could also be as low as five percent annually via its staking service.

Individuals and funds who do not have expertise or time to manage the day-to-day tasks of staking – supporting a proof-of-stake (PoS) network by holding its token and getting rewards in return – would benefit from the service, Battlestar said, as it protects investors' holdings, as well as providing portfolio yield.

“Most custody players sidestep staking, and most staking agencies avoid custody because of the risks. Battlestar strategically combines both under one roof,” said Meltem Demirors, an advisor to the company.

Battlestar Capital CEO Adam Carver said:

“After bitcoin['s] significant 85 per cent price drop, investors looked to diversify their portfolio through staking other coins. PoS coins [have] emerged as a profitable avenue for investors – including bitcoin maximalists – to gain sizeable yield with their passive holdings.”

Celsius Network aims to add “at least five” more PoS coins (likely tezos, zcoin, decred, horizen and cardano) to its existing 17 crypto assets “over the next three months,” according to a statement.

“Battlestar makes hosting masternodes, like Zcoin’s Znodes, more accessible,” said Zcoin’s chief operating officer, Reuben Yap. “One of their unique features is the use of a secure MPC [multi-party computation] key solution, which fragments a private key and stores its pieces separately to eliminate the risk of a single entry point."

Battlestar said it has been privately participating in PoS networks since December 2017 when its founders developed a series of algorithms to optimize staking rewards.

UPDATE (March 26, 19:35 UTC): A sentence in an earlier version of this article misdescribed the return users can earn with the Battlestar service. It is a block reward for staking coins, not interest. The passage has been corrected.

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