Earn up to 13.8% rewards by staking your crypto  

Uphold’s staking feature works with blockchains that use Proof Of Stake (PoS) as a consensus mechanism for validating and processing transactions and creating new blocks in a blockchain.

Owners of a crypto asset, pledge their coins to a validator (through Uphold and its partners) as part of this governance process. Once a block is ready to be processed, the crypto asset's proof-of-stake protocol selects a validator node to verify whether the transactions are accurate and, if so, add that block to the chain, receiving a reward for their contribution.

The chances of a validator being picked differs with each PoS protocol, with some randomization often employed, but chances are increased by the length of time validators have staked their coins and the amount staked.

Virtually anyone with a minimum balance of a supported PoS token can validate transactions and get rewards for doing so. Those rewards are credited regularly to your staking account, thereby compounding future rewards. Staking is therefore a great, legitimate way to put your holdings to work for you while supporting the governance function of a blockchain.

No, Proof of Stake (PoS) staking and lending are two very different activities. In PoS staking, the owner of the relevant cryptocurrency pledges their tokens to a validator for the purpose of validating transactions on the network or dApp associated with the token, but never forfeits the right to dispose of these assets. In turn, the owner is rewarded for contributing to the governance process.

Rewards are set by each crypto network and your weekly payout is determined taking into account:

• The rewards accrued in the crypto network of your staked assets from Thursday 00h00 UTC to Wednesday 23h59 UTC
• The amount of time that you've had your assets staked from Thursday 00h00 UTC to Wednesday 23h59 UTC
• The commission that Uphold charges on each asset being staked

The Annual Percentage Yield (APY) represents a projection of the total rewards you will get on that staked asset, taking into account the effect of compounding those rewards by letting them accumulate.

APY for crypto assets is variable and fluctuates based on supply and demand in each of the blockchain's different protocols. This is determined differently and can change at any given moment.

Uphold gets a commission between 20% - 25%  depending on the asset being staked. In order to ensure full transparency to our users, the estimated APY rate takes our commission into account. For more information, please refer to our Uphold Staking Terms & Conditions.

Rewards start accruing as soon as the moment the preparation period for your staked assets end. Rewards are then paid out every Thursday.

Rewards will be credited to your staking account weekly, every Thursday.

The time it takes assets to start accruing rewards once you staked.

The time it takes to unstake tokens directly on the blockchain varies on a token-by-token basis, for example, DOT has a 28 day unstaking period.

Your staking accounts, balances and rewards-to-date can all be tracked in your portfolio page. 

In order to stake assets, you must have your identity verified and reside in a location where staking is allowed. Staking services are not currently available in the US, Canada, the EEA, Japan, Singapore, or in other jurisdictions in which Uphold does not generally make its services available. For more information - please refer to our Terms and Conditions.

As with any financial operation, staking is not risk-free. The most common risk associated with staking is incurring “slashing” penalties charged by the network. Uphold protects against any uptime-related slashing risk, and monitors staked assets 24/7 to avoid downtime-related slashing. 

Uphold will make every reasonable effort to provide you with the ability to unstake your assets upon request via our flexible staking feature. In times of unusually high demand, however, you may not be able to unstake (and thus trade, send or withdraw) your assets until the end of the relevant network's unstaking period. This period varies, depending on the underlying network.

Upon unstaking, the assets you staked will be returned to your Uphold account, but during the unbounding period, the value of the asset may change. 

For more information about staking and any risks involved, please refer to our staking Terms & Conditions.

You are solely responsible for reporting and paying any applicable taxes including, but not limited to, any capital gains tax, based on your transactions on Uphold, including any staking rewards that you may earn.

Each asset has a minimum token per transaction amount, and a maximum weekly unstaking limit.

Check our dedicated support section for additional information.