Institutional customers will now have access to their crypto even when placing a bet. Blockdaemon and Stakewise announced Harbor, a liquid staking service for leading altcoin Ethereum. Institutional customers who stake their crypto will receive a derivative token that they can use on certain DeFi protocols.
Harbor is now active on mainnet
Two major blockchain companies have announced the launch of Harbor, a liquid staking protocol for Ethereum. Blockdaemon and StakeWise launched the main-net version of Harbor on June 6, after an earlier test-net phase in March.
Harbor provides a staking service for financial institutions and technology companies. However, Harbor follows a different method from other crypto staking methods. In Harbor’s system, customers do not lose access to their funds during the lockdown period and can earn betting rewards.
Harbour will initially work with the leading altcoin
As we have reported as Kriptokoin.com, Harbor will accept deposits of Ethereum’s native cryptocurrency token ETH. Participants staking ETH will receive the derivative Harbor token. They will be able to use these tokens with authorized DeFi platforms for lending, borrowing, option writing and interest rate swaps.
Additionally, Harbor aims to be completely safe and compliant with regulations. The user base will consist of KYC-certified contributors. Slashing insurance, multiple code checks, and fully secure smart contract keys will also ensure funds stay safe.
Konstantin Richter, founder and CEO of Blockdaemon, highlighted Harbor’s unique approach. Richter described it as “the first ETH enterprise-class liquid staking solution available in the market today.”
StakeWise co-founder Kirill Kutakov spoke similarly. Kutakov said the launch of Harbor means “for the first time, traditional institutions can participate in staking and DeFi on the terms they are used to.”
Liquid staking is on the rise
There are several staking services currently offering liquid staking along with Harbor. However, Harbor’s other services with competing features are on the way. Coinbase Cloud and Figment support a liquid staking project called Alluvial, which is still in development as of May.
Non-institutional liquid staking services are also popular. Lido, a DeFi platform, accounts for a large share of liquid staking on Ethereum. Rocket Pool is a highly respected alternative.
Experts say the Harbor will likely gain a lot of value thanks to the funds accrued by its operators thus far. StakeWise claims to have transferred 50,000 ETH ($93 million) to its validators to date. Blockdaemon, on the other hand, claims to have handed over $11 billion to its own validators.
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