The IoTeX blockchain's governance community voted to support ether liquid staking derivatives with 97% of token holders in favor of the move.
Some 141 million IOTX were staked in favor of the network’s 13th improvement proposal (IIP-13), which increases the IOTX staking ratio to enhance network security by expanding the number of validators, or entities that process transactions and maintain the blockchain.
The proposal also suggests natively adding support to represent staking buckets as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) so liquid staking protocols can manage their stakes through smart contracts. That would allow developers to quickly launch liquid staking decentralized applications (dapps) and potentially increase the staking ratio – improving the network’s use case among developers and contributing to the value proposition of IOTX tokens.
“Increasing the IOTX staking ratio and, therefore, the security of its blockchain has always been the goal for IoTeX,” co-founder Raullen Chai said in a message to CoinDesk. “The primary motivation behind IIP-13 is improved security and further decentralization of the IoTeX blockchain.”
With this feature implemented and deployed on testnet and mainnet, builders can quickly launch their liquid staking dapps, such as Lido and Rocketpool, on the IoTex network.
Liquid staking refers to the exchange of staked ether for tokenized versions of the second-largest cryptocurrency that can be used in decentralized finance (DeFi) applications. Uses range from using these tokens as collateral for loans or margin trading to earning yield.
Such tokens have been among the higher gainers this year so far, with Lido’s LDO and Rocketpool’s RPL each gaining over 200% in the past three months, CoinGecko data shows.
Staking on the IoTeX blockchain is currently done directly on the network without connecting to smart contracts for support.
IOTX is trading at 2 cents on Tuesday and has a market capitalization of $290 million, CoinGecko data shows.
