IoTeX Releases Hardfork, Launches Web3-Compatible Staking Wallet

IoTeX launched the world’s first Web3-compatible staking wallet at the best possible time, IoTeX CTO Qevan Guo told CoinQuora. This feature was launched alongside the rise of crypto users worldwide and staking’s rise in popularity.

We are the first permissionless blockchain in the entire space to enable a Web3-compatible staking wallet (…) We are the only proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain network to make this possible.

Guo explained that this new feature benefits users of the 500,000 IOTX wallets currently active. He said it also opens up IOTX staking to 20 million Metamask and Trust Wallet users. Over 31% of all IOTX tokens are in circulation and are currently staked, according to Guo. 

Staking, the Next Big Thing in Crypto?

A recent newsreport quotes the Bitwise Asset Management Director of Research David Lawant saying that staking is the next big thing in crypto. “For the industry as a whole, we expect staking to become a big business,” Lawant added. He co-authored the book “Cryptoassets: The Guide to Bitcoin, Blockchain, and Cryptocurrency for Investment Professionals.”

The same news report said, “some crypto investors are already earning an annual percentage yield of over 1,000% by staking, and earning a huge amount of passive income along the way.”

Web3 wallets give users complete control over their assets. These wallets are also a way to easily interact with decentralized applications, decentralized finance (DeFi), gaming, collect NFTs, create an on-chain identity, and collaborate with communities.

Moreover, IoTeX core developers worked on the 1.8 protocol update for over two months, and it activated itself at the block height of 17,662,681, Guo explained.

Staking from Web3 wallets

IoTeX published ablog on May 27 that goes further into detail. “To understand this, it’s important to know that IoTeX staking actions, from the creation of the stake to the choice of the delegated node to the transfer of deposits, are implemented as custom transactions that are part of the native protocol of the blockchain and not, as some might think, as a smart contract.”

The blog continues: “This choice provides great scalability to IoTeX staking, which can easily handle hundreds of thousands of staking deposits. It is also extremely cost-effective. Each staking action does not involve executing expensive smart contract calls, but just sending a native transaction, which only costs 0.01 IOTX, exactly like a simple IOTX token transfer transaction.”

Until this v1.8 hard fork, staking IOTX was only possible with IoTeX’s native wallet,ioPay, and not by using an Ethereum wallet like Metamask or Trust Wallet.