Binance’s US Trading Platform to Introduce Staking Rewards

Binance.US, the U.S. cryptocurrency trading platform of major crypto exchange Binance, will introduce staking rewards in February.

According to an announcement published by Binance.US on Jan. 29, staking rewards will be made available for Algorand (ALGO) and COSMOS (ATOM) starting next month.

Staking support for more coins to come

Furthermore, the exchange announced plans to add other Proof-of-Stake (PoS) coins later. The announcement explains that an easy way to access staking “allows more people to earn rewards for contributing to the network by promoting network security, reducing validation costs.”

Furthermore, Binance.US claims to be the first United States marketplace to offer staking rewards for users’ ATOM and ALGO holdings. The firm’s CEO Catherine Coley said:

“Staking is just one of the many attractive ways we are bringing new people into the digital asset marketplace. We consider this another step towards achieving our goal of financial inclusion for an ever-growing pool of people.”

Staking centralization?

The announcement follows the launch of a dedicated staking platform by Binance’s principal cryptocurrency trading platform at the end of September 2019. Staking is an activity possible on PoS-based blockchains that allows the network’s nodes to validate blocks by holding cryptocurrency as collateral.

While in the case of Bitcoin (BTC), a 51% attack requires a barrage of processing power, in the case of a PoS blockchain, a 51% attack requires the attacker to hold a great number of the coin that they are attacking. As Cointelegraph recently reported, Bitcoin Gold’s (BTG) blockchain suffered a 51% attack resulting in over $70,000 worth of BTG being double-spent.

The initiative, often referred to as staking-as-a-service, attracted some criticism from the cryptocurrency community. Dovey Wan — founding partner of blockchain-based investment company Primitive Ventures — has commented at the time of the announcement:

“That’s why RIP for all StakingaaS Exchanges gonna eat it, custodial wallets gonna eat it, even PoW pool gonna eat it, and then the remaining is a race to the bottom Bad business, just bad.”