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staking

Winklevoss’ Gemini Offering ETH and SOL Staking in U.K.

by admin August 26, 2025

Gemini, the crypto exchange founded and led by Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, expanded its staking services to the U.K., allowing all customers to earn rewards on ether (ETH) and solana SOL$191.04 directly through its platform, the company said in a blog post Tuesday.

The introduction follows the opening of Gemini’s first permanent office in London, signaling the company’s push to strengthen its footprint in the region.

Staking is the process of locking up tokens to help secure proof-of-stake blockchains in exchange for rewards. Users can stake any amount of ether or solana, with Gemini offering up to 6% annual percentage rate (APR) on SOL and a variable rate for ETH.

Until now, staking on Gemini’s U.K. platform required a minimum of 32 ether through its Staking Pro service. The new offering removes that barrier, making staking more accessible to retail users.

Gemini says its staking product is designed to simplify participation in proof-of-stake networks. Rewards accrue daily and can be tracked in the app, while the company highlights its institutional-grade custody setup as an added layer of security.

The move comes amid increasing competition among exchanges offering staking services, with yield rates and ease of access becoming key differentiators for retail users looking to earn passive income from their crypto holdings.

Last week, the exchange said it had has secured a Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) license from the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA), strengthening its bid to expand across the European Union.

Read more: Crypto Exchange Gemini Secures MiCA License in Malta, Expands European Footprint

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August 26, 2025 0 comments

Crypto Trends

Liquid Staking on Bitcoin Gains Momentum With Lombard’s $BARD Token

by admin August 23, 2025

For most of its history, bitcoin has been prized as digital gold: an asset to hold rather than use. That passivity has left trillions of dollars’ worth of BTC sitting idle in wallets, disconnected from the yield strategies and composability that define decentralized finance (DeFi).

The rise of liquid staking tokens promises to change that, positioning bitcoin not only as a store of value but as a productive asset integrated into onchain capital markets.

Liquid staking refers to the process of uses offering their crypto to help secure a network, and receive a liquid, tradable token in return that represents their staked assets and can be used across DeFi while the original tokens continue earning staking rewards.

Lombard Finance has emerged as one of the prominent projects in bitcoin liquid staking. Its flagship product, LBTC, is a yield-bearing token backed 1:1 by BTC.

When BTC is deposited into the Lombard protocol, the underlying coins are staked, primarily via Babylon, a protocol enabling trustless, self-custodial bitcoin staking. Users receive LBTC in return, which can be deployed across DeFi ecosystems while the original Bitcoin earns staking rewards.

This dual functionality is key. Holders can keep exposure to bitcoin while using LBTC in lending, borrowing, and liquidity provision across protocols such as Aave, Morpho, Pendle, and Ether.fi. Designed for interoperability, LBTC moves across Ethereum, Base, BNB Chain, and other networks, preventing liquidity fragmentation and ensuring bitcoin can participate in a multi-chain DeFi environment.

A market potentially worth billions

By mobilizing BTC’s dormant liquidity, Lombard and other liquid staking projects aim to provide the infrastructure for Bitcoin DeFi, channeling the asset’s vast market cap into onchain capital markets.

This effort mirrors Ethereum’s own transformation through liquid staking derivatives, but with the potential to unlock a deeper pool of value given bitcoin’s scale.

To contextualize the difference in scale, Ethereum’s liquid staking market, led by Lido’s stETH, boasts a market cap of approximately $38 billion. In contrast, the entire bitcoin LST sector is still nascent, with total market capitalization around $2.5 billion. Lombard’s LBTC alone accounts for roughly $1.4 billion of that, or around 40% of the bitcoin LST market.

Lombard’s BARD

Building on that foundation, Lombard this week announced the creation of the Liquid Bitcoin Foundation and its native $BARD token, alongside a $6.75 million community sale.

The Foundation will act as an independent steward of the protocol, funding research, grants, and education, while establishing governance frameworks to preserve neutrality. $BARD will serve as the utility and governance token of the ecosystem, giving holders the ability to stake to secure Lombard’s core infrastructure, vote on proposals, and gain access to new products.

Jacob Phillips, Lombard’s co-founder, described the community sale as “an invitation to over 260,000 LBTC holders and others in the Bitcoin ecosystem to help shape the future of bitcoin onchain.” Erick Zhang, founder of Buidlpad who will host the sale, added that Lombard is “a pioneer unlocking bitcoin’s full potential as digital gold and a foundation for next-gen capital markets.”

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August 23, 2025 0 comments

Crypto Trends

VanEck Files First JitoSOL Liquid Staking ETF in U.S.

by admin August 23, 2025

VanEck has filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to launch the first exchange-traded fund (ETF) built around JitoSOL, a token on the Solana blockchain.

The application, submitted today through a Form S-1 filing, is meant to give investors a new way to buy into Solana’s liquid staking market without holding the tokens directly.

Proud to announce the S-1 filing of the @vaneck_us JitoSOL ETF!

The first spot Solana ETF backed 100% by LST staking!

This filing represents a culmination of 8 months of collaborative work with SEC staff to establish clear regulatory frameworks for Liquid Staking Tokens.

🧵⬇️

— Jito (@jito_sol) August 22, 2025

According to the filling, JitoSOL is a type of token that represents staked SOL, the native token of Solana. When someone stakes SOL, they lock it in the network to help keep it running, and in return, they earn rewards.

Normally, staked tokens cannot be used until they are unlocked, but JitoSOL changes that. With JitoSOL, people can earn rewards and still use or trade their tokens at the same time. This is called liquid staking, and it gives users more freedom compared to traditional staking.

According to VanEck’s filing, the new fund will follow the price of JitoSOL, which means the ETF’s value will rise or fall depending on how JitoSOL performs. This would let investors buy shares of the ETF in their regular brokerage accounts instead of managing crypto wallets or exchanges.

In a blogpost, Jito Foundation said the fund is ““the first spot Solana ETF 100% backed by a liquid staking token (LST): the Jito Network’s JitoSOL….Ultimately, packaging exposure to JitoSOL in a regulated wrapper is a meaningful step toward bridging the gap between emergent blockchain infrastructure and institutional allocators,”

Meanwhile, ito Labs has also been in talks with the SEC for months to explain how staking and restaking could work in ETFs. CEO Lucas Bruder and Chief Legal Officer Rebecca Rettig have met with the SEC’s Crypto Task Force.

The SEC itself has recently clarified its views on staking. Earlier this year, the regulator said proof-of-stake systems do not count as securities. Later, it also said some liquid staking activities are not securities either. With this new guidance, the Jito Foundation said, the “compliance runway for LST-based ETFs/ETPs is clear and actionable.”

This filing also comes just after REX-Osprey launched a Solana staking ETF that used JitoSOL for rewards. The SEC is now reviewing many crypto ETF applications, with a friendlier approach under the Trump administration. If approved, the VanEck JitoSOL ETF would be the first U.S. fund fully tied to a liquid staking token.

Also Read: $300 Million Crypto Shorts Liquidated in Four-Hour Market Frenzy

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August 23, 2025 0 comments

GameFi Guides

VanEck Files to Launch Staked Solana (SOL) ETF Backed by Liquid Staking Token JitoSOL

by admin August 22, 2025

Asset manager VanEck has filed to launch a staked solana SOL$199.71 exchange-traded fund (ETF), signaling continued interest in bringing blockchain-native yield-bearing assets to traditional investment rails.

The application, submitted Friday as an S-1 registration with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), is the first of two filings required to list the fund. If approved, the ETF would hold JitoSOL, a liquid staking token native to the Solana blockchain. JitoSOL reflects ownership of SOL tokens that have been staked and also accrues the staking rewards earned by those tokens.

Unlike traditional ETFs, this product would not just track the price of SOL but also the income generated by staking — effectively baking Solana’s yield into a publicly traded product.

The SEC has been in ongoing discussions with ETF providers, including VanEck, about whether staking components can be integrated into existing and proposed crypto investment funds.

Regulatory bottlenecks

Speaking at an industry panel in Jackson Hole earlier this week, SEC Chair Paul Atkins said the Commission is looking to clear regulatory bottlenecks that slow innovation.

“There’s a lot of spring cleaning that needs to be done at the SEC,” he said. “We cannot have things so abstruse that lawyers can’t give opinions to clients.”

Atkins said the agency’s future rules should be flexible and designed to evolve. He added that the SEC wants to continue its legacy of adapting to new technologies, hinting at a more open stance toward crypto asset products like liquid staking ETFs.

VanEck joins a number of asset managers looking to launch a staked solana fund, including Fidelity, Grayscale and Franklin Templeton.

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August 22, 2025 0 comments

NFT Gaming

Valantis DEX acquires stHYPE as Hyperliquid staking heats up

by admin August 20, 2025

Valantis has taken a decisive step in the liquid staking market with its acquisition of stHYPE, the second-largest staking protocol on Hyperliquid’s HyperEVM.

Summary

Valantis acquired stHYPE, the second-largest liquid staking token on Hyperliquid.
The deal integrates stHYPE with Valantis’ DEX, targeting deeper liquidity and modular yield features.
Competition with kHYPE sets the stage for an expanding liquid staking market.

Announced on Aug. 19, the deal unifies stHYPE under the Valantis ecosystem. It sets the stage for expanded yield opportunities, deeper liquidity, and a stronger roadmap for Hyperliquid’s (HYPE) decentralized finance environment.

Integration and roadmap

Following the acquisition, Valantis takes complete control of stHYPE’s development, operations, and communication. The shift begins with a foundation phase where stHYPE is migrated to CoreWriter, a system designed to enhance security and transparency by enabling improved monitoring of off-chain infrastructure.

Community incentives will also expand through integrator rewards, ensuring stHYPE continues to be widely adopted across Hyperliquid’s protocols. In the second phase, stHYPE will be transformed into a modular liquid staking token that can support multiple staking addresses and allow new permissionless interactions between DeFi and staking applications.

This modular base is expected to connect staking with trading, lending, and HyperCore’s derivatives markets, giving liquidity providers more ways to participate from a single HYPE deposit.

Hyperliquid staking landscape

stHYPE enters this new chapter at a time of growing competition within Hyperliquid. kHYPE, which commands over a billion dollars in total value locked, has surpassed it as the dominant LST.

Through the acquisition of stHYPE, Valantis hopes to close that gap by transforming its DEX into a hub for liquidity that vertically integrates trading and staking. The strategy also expands the scope of STEX pools, which already support efficient swaps and lending market integrations without waiting through staking withdrawal queues.

Hyperliquid’s liquid staking market appears to be changing, with protocols now competing not only on staking yields but also on depth of liquidity, DeFi integration, and the range of services provided. Valantis sees the merger with stHYPE as an opportunity to gain a stronger presence in a market that continues to attract new participants and innovations.

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August 20, 2025 0 comments