Jito announced the filing of an exchange-traded fund (ETF) based entirely on Solana liquid staking tokens in a partnership with VanEck.

According to an Aug. 22 announcement, the filing represents months of collaborative regulatory outreach between Jito and VanEck, beginning with initial meetings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in February. 

The partnership aims to combine Solana exposure with staking rewards in a regulated wrapper accessible to traditional investors.

Matthew Sigel, head of digital assets research at VanEck, described the filing as selective but significant. 

He stated via X:

“We’ve been very selective with our single-token ETF filings this year, but today’s S-1 for the VanEck JitoSOL ETF matters. If listed, it would represent a new piece of market infrastructure that bridges DeFi innovation with TradFi accessibility.”

Regulatory clarity

The filing builds on SEC staff guidance issued on Aug. 5, which clarified that liquid staking activities do not constitute securities transactions when properly structured. 

This guidance essentially removed the final regulatory hurdle for staking-enabled crypto ETFs.

Jito’s preparation included a March 2025 securities classification report explaining why JitoSOL operates as a decentralized infrastructure rather than a security. 

The company participated in regulatory comment periods during the summer of 2025, providing feedback on the safe use of liquid staking tokens in exchange-traded products.

Operational benefits

The announcement noted that the JitoSOL structure offers key advantages for institutional investors. Liquid staking tokens eliminate unbonding delays, allowing daily ETF creation and redemption while maintaining staking reward accrual. 

The approach provides regulatory clarity through standard ETF accounting methods, giving investors access to staked Solana yields without operational complications.

Staking yields can offset or exceed expense ratios on networks like Solana, potentially improving long-term returns. The structure supports network security by decentralizing stake across validators, meaning investors contribute to blockchain health.

Jito Foundation Chief Commercial Officer Thomas Uhm worked with ETF issuers, custodians, and exchanges to establish infrastructure enabling VanEck’s product launch. The effort received support from Multicoin Capital, the Solana Foundation, and VanEck.

Further, VanEck and Jito join Canary Capital and Marinade in the group of issuers partnering with liquid staking protocols. Canary amended its Solana ETF filing in May 2025 to name Marinade Select as its staking provider.

The S-1 filing initiates a review process before potential market listing, positioning Jito to advance institutional crypto adoption through regulated on-chain finance products.

Mentioned in this article

08 August What can simplicity bring to liquid networks?

Simplicity is a formally verifiable smart contract language designed to bring versatility and programmability with Bitcoin, recently deployed on BlockStream’s Liquid Network. Unlike Ethereum’s EVM, Simplicity avoids global state and Turing’s integrity and instead focuses on predictable, auditable contracts. Its deterministic design allows developers to rigorously verify contract behavior and resource use before execution, making it particularly suitable for high paying applications such as contracts, vaults, and multi-party financial arrangements. With the introduction of high-level interfaces, simplicity and early deployment into liquids, simplicity represents a major leap into the safe and flexible smart contracts of Bitcoin’s wider ecosystem, continuing to remain true to the principles of conservatism, auditability and minimal trust.

What is simplicity?

Simplicity is a low-level programming and is a formally verifiable smart contract language designed to enhance Bitcoin programmership while maintaining the core principles of security and predictability. Recently active on BlockStream’s Liquid Network, Simplicity introduces a new way of creating contracts using recursive and no loops, allowing for rigorous static analysis and mathematical proof of accuracy. This is a noticeable deviation from traditional scripting environments such as Bitcoin Script and Ethereum’s EVM. This is not sufficiently expressive, bringing unpredictability and complexity. Instead, simplicity emphasizes determinism and auditability, consistent with Bitcoin’s conservative development philosophy.

Integration into liquid sidechains represents a significant advance in the network, allowing you to create sophisticated financial products such as programmable safes, multi-party controls, and threshold signature schemes. These features extend the utility of liquid networks beyond asset issuance and confidential transactions by supporting use cases that require stronger assurance properties. Simplicity works with Bitcoin’s UTXO model and implements self-contained logic, avoiding reliance on the global state of variability, thereby reducing the likelihood of unintended behavior and exploitation, and reducing the concerns that plague the more tolerant smart contract platform.

One important improvement that one of the simplicity brings to liquids is compatibility with formal methods. Developers can use Proof Assistants such as COQ to verify contracts before deployment, reducing the risk of bugs and vulnerabilities in production environments. The availability of high-level programming languages such as SimplicityHL further reduces the barriers to entry for developers and allows for wider adoption without compromising the inherent safety guarantees of the system. This places liquids as a viable environment for experimenting with smart contracts that prioritize accuracy over flexibility.

Looking ahead, simplicity could serve as a stepping stone to implementing secure, verifiable contract capabilities in the Bitcoin base layer if the community ultimately supports such upgrades with future soft forks. The presence of robust contracting capabilities that remain fixed in Bitcoin’s security model, even if left to liquids, could encourage more institutional and corporate use of Bitcoin adjoining infrastructure. In this way, simplicity not only advances the technical capabilities of liquids, but also contributes to conversations about the future direction of programmerism within the Bitcoin ecosystem.

What leaps does simplicity bring to liquid networks?

Simplicity began as an initiative in 2017 when Blockstream’s Russell O’Connor proposed a new paradigm for Bitcoin native smart contracts. Unlike the iterative improvements in Bitcoin script, simplicity was conceived as an alternative to clean slate, which aims to combine greater expressiveness with stronger formal guarantees. For many years, the Bitcoin development community has been thought to be supported by modest script upgrades, mature in the background, formal methods and theoretical rigor, with focus on scaling solutions such as Lightning. After eight years of development, BlockStream is now using this vision practically implementing simplicity in liquid networks, marking a major milestone in Bitcoin infrastructure.

The recent announcement of Simplicity’s integration into liquids represents the first time this language will be rolled out in production settings. Liquid offers a sidechain environment with faster finality and greater privacy, making it a testbed suitable for advanced contract capabilities. Simplicity’s debut here avoids the risks and trade-offs associated with deploying experimental features directly into the basic layer of Bitcoin. Deploying it into liquids also avoids the potential multi-year consensus battle needed to shake up the Bitcoin community and make changes to Bitcoin. In addition to the attribute that is attributed to being a low-level programming language, BlockStream also introduced SimplicityHl, a developer-friendly high-level programming language designed to resemble rust, focusing on Rast Code. This abstraction is key to making the platform accessible, auditable and practical for real-world application development.

Technically, Simplicity introduces several important innovations. It is tightened by the design, avoiding structures such as unfixed loops and variable global states, which are common causes of failure in other environments. All simplicity contracts can be statically analyzed for pre-execution accuracy, resource use, and possible outcomes. This makes it particularly suitable for applications that require high guarantees, such as vaults with programmable departure conditions, multi-party threshold signatures, or deterministic exchanges. The language also supports formal verification via the Proof Assistant, allowing developers to mathematically prove that their contracts behave as intended.

By simply expanding the liquid, the Bitcoin ecosystem acquires a programmable layer that can support complex financial primitives without compromising on the principles of predictability and auditability of Bitcoin. This opens the door to new use cases such as contracts, derivatives, pooled wallets, and tokenless dexes. This was previously relegated to a more tolerant, but risky environment. Although initial deployments are limited to liquids, the long-term goal is to gather community feedback, extend touring, and potentially move towards the testnet. Simplicity represents a change in how Bitcoin’s programmerism is considered. It is intentional, safe and based on formal logic.

How can Simplicity stack up compared to other smart contract solutions in Bitcoin?

Simplicity is distinguished from other Bitcoin smart contract solutions by providing a basic rethink rather than an incremental patch on essentially limited Bitcoin script. While Bitcoin Script remains limited to the scope and flexibility with most contracts restricted to basic signature verification templates, Simplicity introduces a more expressive and formal verifiable framework. This allows developers to define features without introducing Turing integrity. This avoids many of the risks associated with open-end logic. This makes it much more simplicity than native scripts and allows for use cases such as contracts, delegated control schemes, or threshold signatures that are otherwise tedious or impossible to implement in Bitcoin Layer 1.

Compared to proposed new opcodes (OP_CHECKTEMPLATEVERIFY or OP_CTV), Simplicity offers a wider, more unified design space. New opcodes can unlock certain features, but they are inherently narrow in scope and require a change in consensus for each extension. In contrast, simplicity defines a generic language that can encode various contract logic using a small defined set of compound primitives. This allows developers to build more complex programs that are less attractive and less attractive to protocol-level changes. In this sense, simplicity scales their capabilities horizontally rather than vertically through continuous patching.

Sapio and Simplicity differ fundamentally in design, functionality, and intended use. SAPIO is a high-level developer-friendly framework that compiles into Bitcoin scripts, relies on the proposed OP_CHECKTEMPLATEVERIFY (CTV) to implement contract structures, suitable for contracts within Bitcoin consensus constraints. In contrast, simplicity is a low-level language with its own independent execution model that is not compiled into Bitcoin scripts, allowing for greater expressiveness, accurate static analysis, and guaranteed termination. Sapio emphasizes Bitcoin usability and short-term developments, but simplicity is designed for formal, secure and complex contracts that are more suitable for environments such as sidechains that can support advanced features without a soft fork.

Finally, when evaluated alongside Bitcoin adjacency platforms such as RSK and Stack, both aim to bring Ethereum-style smart contracts to Bitcoin, but the simplicity is more conservative and takes a path lined with Bitcoin. RSK and Stacks often introduce their own consensus and account models with their own security and trust assumptions. The simplicity implemented in liquids and potentially Bitcoin itself adheres to Bitcoin’s UTXO structure and security model. The lack of recursion and global state reflects intentional design decisions to prioritize predictability, efficiency, and formal inference over general purpose programmerism. In this respect, simplicity does not attempt to replicate Ethereum, but rather creates a safer, dedicated alternative that is tailored to Bitcoin’s strengths.

]]> https://earlybirdsinvest.com/what-can-simplicity-bring-to-liquid-networks/feed/ 0 52314 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/sec-official-warns-liquid-staking-guidance-adds-confusion-raising-lehman-like-risks/ https://earlybirdsinvest.com/sec-official-warns-liquid-staking-guidance-adds-confusion-raising-lehman-like-risks/#respond Wed, 06 Aug 2025 11:32:54 +0000 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/sec-official-warns-liquid-staking-guidance-adds-confusion-raising-lehman-like-risks/

US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw has criticized recent staff guidance on liquid staking, warning that it fails to reflect the practice’s complexities.

On Aug. 5, the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance asserted that certain liquid staking arrangements, specifically those involving receipt tokens, do not fall under securities regulations.

However, Crenshaw pushed back, arguing that the statement adds confusion rather than clarity to the legal treatment of liquid staking.

“Instead of clarifying the legal landscape, today’s statement, like other recent staff statements before it, only muddies the waters.”

Crenshaw pointed to two major flaws in the SEC staff’s position. First, she said the guidance relies on a long list of questionable assumptions about how liquid staking operates. Second, the staff’s legal conclusions are heavily caveated, making them unreliable for firms trying to navigate compliance.

She noted that any staking activity not fitting the precise conditions described in the document would fall outside its scope. Because of this, she argued, the guidance offers little protection or direction to those involved in staking-related services.

Crenshaw also reminded investors that the guidance represents the opinion of SEC staff, not the official stance of the Commission itself. As such, she believes it should have been framed as a cautionary alert, not a position of regulatory clarity.

Lehman-like risks in crypto staking

Adding to the concerns, Amanda Fischer, a former SEC Chief of Staff under Gary Gensler, drew parallels between liquid staking and the risky financial practices that led to Lehman Brothers’ collapse in 2008.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Fischer warned that liquid staking could expose crypto markets to cascading failures. She explained that the practice allows users to deposit digital assets and receive a synthetic version of the same token, which can be reused to earn additional rewards.

According to Fischer, this mirrors how Lehman reused client assets to back high-risk trades. She argued that liquid staking could replicate the same vulnerabilities without strong regulatory oversight.

The former SEC official also highlighted the risks of relying on token issuers, the possibility of long delays when unstaking, and the threat of technical failures or hacks. Together, these factors could amplify systemic risk across the crypto sector.

Mentioned in this article

Fresh US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) staff guidance on liquid staking is stoking expectations that US regulators will soon allow staking within spot crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

Co-founder of The ETF Institute Nate Geraci called the guidance “the last hurdle” before the SEC can approve staking in spot Ethereum (ETH) ETFs.

Furthermore, he noted that liquid staking tokens (LSTs) would be used to manage liquidity inside funds, a key concern for the Commission.

His comments echo the SEC Division of Corporation Finance’s view that, under the structures described, liquid staking activities do not involve offers or sales of securities.

Additionally, staking receipt tokens (SRT) function as receipts for the underlying assets rather than as securities themselves.

Industry read-through

LSTs allow funds to keep staked exposure liquid, maintaining on-chain staking rewards while holding a transferable receipt token that can be used for portfolio operations, collateral, or redemptions without fully unwinding staking positions.

Lucas Bruder, CEO of Jito Labs, said in a note that the statement showed an “incredibly nuanced understanding” of current liquid staking arrangements. 

He added:

“We will see expanded use for LSTs in both traditional and novel financial instruments, including ETFs.” 

Regarding the impact of the decision, Bruder is looking forward to fully-staked ETFs via LSTs coming to market.

The CEO of Jito Labs and other industry players met with the SEC in mid-February to discuss staking rules for ETFs. 

According to the meeting logs, LSTs were discussed to address the agency’s concerns about redemption timing. The participants highlighted that LSTs within an ETP framework avoid direct involvement in the staking process, streamlining the process.

The liquid staking statement builds on a May 29 staff view that other forms of protocol staking likewise do not require registration, and that features such as early withdrawals or slashing protection do not by themselves convert staking into a securities offering. 

However, the SEC emphasized that its view applies to administrative and ministerial provider roles and specific fact patterns. Consequently, arrangements that go beyond those boundaries may be treated differently.

Mentioned in this article

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has clarified that certain cryptocurrency liquid staking activities do not constitute securities offerings, a notable step in the agency’s ongoing effort to provide clearer guidance on digital asset regulation.

“The statement clarifies the division’s view that, depending on the facts and circumstances, the liquid staking activities covered in the statement do not involve the offer and sale of securities,” the regulator said Tuesday, referring to key sections of the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.

In its Staff Statement, the SEC defined liquid staking as the process of staking digital assets through a protocol and receiving a “liquid staking receipt token,” which serves as evidence of the staker’s ownership.

“Today’s staff statement on liquid staking is a significant step forward in clarifying the staff’s view about crypto asset activities that do not fall within the SEC’s jurisdiction,” SEC Chair Paul Atkins said in a statement. 

The SEC’s clarification comes amid rising institutional interest in liquid staking exchange-traded funds (ETFs), with firms like Jito Labs, VanEck and Bitwise urging the agency to approve liquid staking strategies for Solana (SOL)-based funds.

Liquid staking has become one of the largest subsectors in crypto, with total value locked (TVL) nearing $67 billion across all protocols, according to DefiLlama. Ethereum alone accounts for $51 billion of that total.

Related: Crypto Biz: Digital gold rush intensifies as Tether Gold surges, institutions double down on BTC

SEC adopts pro-crypto approach under Paul Atkins

The announcement follows the SEC’s launch of Project Crypto — a sweeping initiative to overhaul the regulatory framework for cryptocurrency trading in the United States. As SEC Chair Paul Atkins noted last week, the project was developed in response to recommendations from the White House’s Working Group on Digital Assets

Since taking office, Atkins has led a more lenient approach to digital asset regulation, moving away from the agency’s prior “regulation by enforcement” stance under former Chair Gary Gensler. That shift included a May clarification that proof-of-stake protocols do not constitute securities transactions.

Under Atkins’ leadership, the SEC has also taken meaningful steps to ease regulatory burdens on cryptocurrency exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

Notably, on July 29, the agency approved in-kind creations and redemptions for Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) ETFs, allowing authorized participants to exchange ETF shares directly for the underlying assets rather than cash.

The US crypto industry is also gaining momentum from sweeping policy reforms designed to make digital assets more accessible. These include the passage of the GENIUS Act, a landmark stablecoin bill, and House approval of market structure and anti-CBDC legislation ahead of the August recess.

Related: SEC ends ‘regulation through enforcement,’ calls tokenization ‘innovation’

]]> https://earlybirdsinvest.com/us-sec-says-certain-liquid-staking-activities-fall-outside-of-securities-laws/feed/ 0 51663 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/wwdcs-ios-26-launch-is-the-first-step-toward-the-liquid-glass-iphone/ https://earlybirdsinvest.com/wwdcs-ios-26-launch-is-the-first-step-toward-the-liquid-glass-iphone/#respond Mon, 09 Jun 2025 12:02:38 +0000 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/wwdcs-ios-26-launch-is-the-first-step-toward-the-liquid-glass-iphone/

The following is a guest post and analysis from Vincent Maliepaard, Marketing Director at Sentora.

The Bitcoin market cap recently surpassed $2 trillion, and with over 50 million bitcoin addresses with a balance, the value of the asset is becoming undeniable. However, where traditional currencies like dollars or euros typically pay interest on holdings, Bitcoin provides no such rewards for simply holding the asset. More recently though, two distinct pathways have emerged to change that picture:

1. Native Bitcoin “staking” – lock BTC in the Babylon protocol and earn fees.
2. Liquid‑staking tokens (LSTs) – mint a tradable receipt such as LBTC that keeps the staking rewards flowing while restoring liquidity.

These two solutions provide a viable route to earning stable yield on your Bitcoin. Let’s dive into what this entails and how it works.

From Proof‑of‑Stake to Proof‑of‑Bitcoin

Babylon went live on mainnet in late‑2024, letting BTC holders time‑lock coins on the Bitcoin chain and delegate them to so‑called Bitcoin‑Secured Networks. The networks pay out fees in BTC, producing a yield of roughly 1 – 2 % currently.

The idea has caught on quickly: Babylon reports more than $4 billion in BTC staked on the protocol since last year.

Key features

• No wrapping or bridges: BTC never leaves its native chain.
• Main risks: a protocol bug or “slashing” if a delegated validator misbehaves.
• Drawback: staked coins stay immobile until an unbonding timer expires.

Liquid staking: LBTC puts mobility back on the menu

Lock‑ups are a deal‑breaker for many traders. Liquid‑staking tokens fix that by issuing a transferable asset that represents the underlying stake plus its future rewards.

An example of such a liquid staking token for Bitcoin is LBTC from Lombard Finance

• 1:1 minting: stake BTC through Lombard’s Babylon contracts and receive LBTC on an EVM chain. (Lombard)
• Seven‑day exit: burn LBTC to trigger the same unbond period as native Babylon staking, about a week. Nonetheless, users can easily exit LBTC by trading it on DEXs.
• Real liquidity: daily on‑chain volume averages more than $200 million, and liquidity is large enough to facilitate transactions up to $30 million without significant slippage; enough for most portfolio‑sized exits.
• Custody trade‑off: holders must trust Lombard’s mint‑and‑burn smart contracts and the Babylon validator set.

While LBTC inherits the base staking reward, its real super‑power is capital efficiency: users can post LBTC as collateral, spin it into DeFi pools or simply sell it on a DEX while the original BTC keeps working.

Vaulting the yield curve

While this sounds enticing, earning a notable return with your Bitcoin LST can be complicated. As a retail user, you have to understand complex dynamics in DeFi related to risk and return of different protocols and strategies.

Even if you do have a basic understanding of these factors, users must still actively manage their positions, as returns often fluctuate depending on the markets. That means that to sustain a notable APY, users have to occasionally switch strategies or take action to keep their position profitable.

Fortunately, there are other options. Lombard offers a variety of vaults that aim to simplify this process and keep earning yield on Bitcoin as straightforward as possible. Let’s take a look at one recently launched vault; the Sentora DeFi vault.

Sentora, born from the merger of IntoTheBlock’s with Trident’s Digital, launched a BTC Yield Vault on Lombard recently. The product accepts either wBTC or LBTC and targets an APY of ~6 %, significantly more than plain staking.

How it earns the spread

The vault automatically executes several different strategies in different capacities depending on the market conditions. This is all automated and requires no manual action from users or vault managers. Some of these strategies include the following:

1. Over‑collateralised lending – lends BTC‑derived assets on lending markets like Aave for interest.
2. Pendle yield trading – splits and sells future yield streams, front‑loading extra return.
3. Delta‑neutral borrows – borrows other assets such as stablecoins to deploy in delta-neutral high yield strategies

Every one of these strategies is plugged into Sentora’s real‑time DeFi risk engine; the same data institutions use to monitor risk exposure across DeFi. Positions that drift beyond preset limits are automatically rebalanced.

Risk‑reward snapshots

• Native staking: tight risk surface, modest return. Ideal for cold‑storage purists who can tolerate lock‑ups.
• LBTC alone: same base yield, but tokens stay liquid, at the cost of smart‑contract and bridge exposure. Users can amplify yield by interacting with DeFi protocols.
• Sentora Vault: broader risk because multiple DeFi venues are involved, but mitigated by automated risk management and hedges.

What to watch next

Holding Bitcoin can finally pay off beyond price appreciations. With different options available for different needs and risk appetites, Bitcoin holders can finally benefit from advancements in DeFi. And with the recent increases in LBTC volume, it is becoming feasible for larger institutional trading desks to utilize these strategies, likely further pushing innovation in the Bitcoin staking area.

Mentioned in this article

May 20th, 2025 – Cayman, Canada

Reppo, a decentralized infrastructure network enabling AI developers and agents to access data, infra, and capital on-demand, has announced the launch of the world’s first Liquid Node Sale.

This groundbreaking initiative is powered by Anoma’s intent-centric architecture and Zoo Finance’s Liquid Node Token (LNT) protocol, marking a significant advancement in decentralized AI infrastructure.

At the core of Reppo’s innovation are Solver Nodes—programmable economic agents that determine the computational path to fulfill user intents, which are partial transactions inspired by Anoma’s Resource Machine. These nodes enable data consumers ranging from developers, agents, and physical AI to express their data (and eventually infrastructure) needs declaratively, allowing the network to autonomously match and provision resources on demand. This eliminates the traditional complexities of resource discovery, negotiation, and integration, streamlining the AI development process.

The Liquid Node Token pioneered by Zoo Finance, introduces a novel model where Solver Nodes are tokenized, providing liquidity and accessibility to a broader range of participants on Day 1 of Reppo Mainnet. Through Zoo Finance’s LNT protocol, Solver Node License holders can acquire also delegate the running of Solver Nodes, making participation in Reppo’s ecosystem Plug & Play . This model not only democratizes access to AI infrastructure but also enhances capital efficiency within the network

Reppo’s Data Exchange architecture addresses key challenges in AI development, including centralized access to compute and data resources, high entry barriers to decentralized AI protocols, and limited access tied to geographic or institutional constraints. By leveraging Anoma’s intent-centric design and Zoo Finance’s liquidity solutions, anyone can participate in the emerging Decentralized Data Economy by simply running a solver node and earning fees and rewards for their efforts.

About Reppo

Reppo is a decentralized infrastructure network that provides AI developers with permissionless, on-demand access to specialized data, infrastructure, and capital. Its intent-centric architecture enables autonomous entities to discover, negotiate, and settle resource transactions without reliance on traditional intermediaries.

About Anoma

Anoma is a distributed operating system for intent-centric applications, facilitating expressive and human-centric interactions in decentralized environments. Its architecture supports the development of applications that prioritize user intent and autonomy.

About Zoo Finance

Zoo Finance is a structured protocol focused on enhancing liquidity utilization in decentralized finance. Its Liquid Node Token (LNT) protocol enables the tokenization and fractional ownership of infrastructure nodes, promoting broader participation and capital efficiency.

For more information, users can visit repposolvers.xyz.

Contact

CEO
RG Rmadya
Reppo Labs
founders@reppo.xyz

Use an Aqua wallet on your Android phone. As those familiar with aqua know, there is a Save money There is a wallet (on the chain) and a Expenses Wallet (liquid and lightning).

Questions, for example, if you generate a certain number of sat lightning bills lnbc653...lgr4how much is that? valid How to receive funds? Forever, like an on-chain address? What if I send someone an invoice today and they decide to pay me after 1 week/month using the same invoice? Will you get money?

The same question about liquid addresses (which do not have a specific amount of SAT tied to them) is similar. Are they valid forever like on-chain addresses?

The Ronin Network has a new feature called Liquid RON for those who hold RON tokens, proposing a more flexible approach to staking. By allowing individuals to deposit RON and receive tradeable tokens in return, Liquid RON (LRON) makes it possible to stake while keeping assets liquid. Here is a closer look at how it works and how to get started.

What Is Liquid RON?

Liquid RON is a vault system based on the ERC-4626 token standard. This standard essentially governs how “tokenized” vaults operate, allowing people to deposit one type of token and receive another token representing their stake in a larger pool.

In this particular case, individuals deposit RON into a specialized vault, and in return, they receive what are known as “Liquid RON” tokens. These newly issued tokens signify the user’s share in the Ronin Network’s validation process.

Liquid RON stakes the deposited RON and takes care of harvesting and compounding rewards without manual interference. As a result, users can reap the benefits of staking while still maintaining the freedom to move and use their tokens.

Moreover, the vault automatically harvests rewards each day, boosting its total RON balance. As a result, your Liquid RON tokens—representing your share of the vault—gain value over time.

How Does Liquid RON Work?

1. Deposit RON: First, users transfer RON tokens into the Liquid RON vault. This can be done through the deposit function or standard ERC-4626 methods.

2. Receive Liquid RON: After depositing RON, the user receives Liquid RON tokens, confirming participation in the Ronin Network’s validation process.

3. Stake and Harvest: Behind the scenes, the vault automatically stakes the deposited RON, then gathers and compounds rewards regularly.

4. Transfer and Use: With Liquid RON in hand, a user is not bound by the usual lock-up periods. These tokens remain fully transferable and can be deployed in other DeFi protocols on the Ronin Network.

The Liquid RON protocol has undergone an audit through Code4rena, ensuring its security and reliability.

Source Liquid RON

Why Liquid RON Stands Out

• Liquidity: Unlike traditional staking programs that lock tokens away, Liquid RON supplies tokens that can be freely moved. If someone wants to trade or transfer them, they can do so without losing staking rewards.

• Automation: The vault takes care of essential tasks like harvesting, compounding, and distributing rewards removing the hassle of constantly monitoring and manually claiming returns.

• Compatibility: By embracing the ERC-4626 standard, Liquid RON can ensure smooth interaction with other DeFi platforms on the Ronin network.

• Efficient Capital Use: Individuals can keep enjoying staking rewards while potentially earning more from other DeFi opportunities that accept Liquid RON tokens.

The Liquid RON vault keeps its fees straightforward. There’s a deposit fee designed to prevent people from rushing in solely to grab rewards right before they are distributed. There is also a performance fee where 6.5% goes to the treasury when the vaults claim rewards according to the Liquid RON website.

Once you have Liquid RON, there are several ways to put it to work. You can simply hold it in your Ronin wallet to earn staking rewards automatically or trade it on decentralized exchanges like Katana to convert your position into other tokens or currencies.

Another option is to participate in DeFi by providing liquidity to LRON/RON or LRON/other token pools, opening up opportunities to earn extra yield from trading fees and rewards. And if you ever want to send your tokens elsewhere, you can transfer LRON to any other wallet without waiting for the usual staking unlock period.

Getting Started With Liquid RON

1. Acquire RON Tokens: Before using Liquid RON, you need to have RON tokens. These can be bought on various cryptocurrency exchanges, such as Binance, Coinbase, or KuCoin.

2. Connect a Ronin Wallet: Once the tokens are in a wallet, the next step is to visit the Liquid RON platform and connect that wallet.

3. Deposit the RON: Using either the deposit command or other ERC-4626 functions, the user sends RON tokens into the vault.

4. Receive Liquid RON: Immediately afterward, the user will see Liquid RON tokens appear in their wallet.

Because Liquid RON tokens reflect a stake in the network, their value tends to appreciate over time. When individuals eventually redeem Liquid RON tokens, they can typically withdraw more RON than they initially deposited, assuming the vault has accrued staking rewards during that period.