The proof-of-stake consensus mechanism was a big leap forward in the field of cryptocurrencies. This makes transactions cheaper and more efficient. Furthermore, staking cryptocurrencies offers investors the opportunity to generate high returns. Let's talk about the best staking coins for the year 2022.

In the financial world, some investors seek high-risk investments because they also come with high returns. They also tend to mix those risky investments with safe ones, in order to minimize their risk. Traditionally, investors used to have saving accounts that yielded them interests. In today’s economies, advanced countries’ interest rates average around 2% per year. You can forget about thinking to invest in risky countries that are either corrupt, poor, or that have been sanctioned.

Enter cryptocurrency staking, which is the exact same thing people do in the “traditional financial world”. Instead of locking money with banks, they lock an amount in a cryptocurrency wallet and earn high yields. In turn, they participate in the operation of a Proof-of-Staking-based blockchain system. Different cryptos have different yields and maturities.

Anything that yields high is risky. When staking cryptos, there are many risk factors that might affect your staking experience:

• Slashing problems: when your validator is being punished by the network for abnormal behaviors (ie. technical problems occur)
• Crypto price depreciation: When you stake, you lock cryptos. Let’s say you froze 100$ worth of X, to yield 10%. Sweet, 10$ profits! Then because of cryptocurrency volatility, the worth of X becomes 10$, yielding in turn 1$…NOT SWEET!
• Lost accounts: Yes, this might occur as many hackers are on the hunt for weak security standards. Recently, an exchange got hacked and you can read about it here.
• Network Centralization: aka the 51% attack, which takes ahold of the whole blockchain.
• Validators “forgetting” to pay rewards: Just like you would follow up on your bank fees, you should follow up on when your interest is paid up, as sometimes technical glitches might happen.

Nevertheless, some exchanges did prove to be worthy of investors’ trust and solid businesses. You should always be on the lookout for companies that listen to their customers, have awesome customer support, and are expanding regularly. Binance is one example of such reputable exchanges, and that’s why we’re going to show you a step-by-step guide on how to stake with them.

Algorand is another modern cryptocurrency and one of the best staking coins. Due to increased adoption and awareness, the ALGO token has increased by over 600% in the last 12 months. For many, Algorand is the next "Ethereum Killer".

Algorand offers annual returns averaging 4.7%. However, staking is still relatively cheap and the upside at Algorand is currently much higher than with the aforementioned staking coins.

Solana (SOL) experienced massive hype in 2021. As a "younger and more modern" version of Ethereum and Cardano, the network made itself popular with numerous investors. Above all, Solana scores with an extremely high transaction speed of up to 50,000 transactions per second. 

The modern proof-of-history consensus mechanism makes these speeds possible. But Solana is also a solid option for staking. The annual rate of return is 6.6 percent. The “lock-in period” is only 5 days. Furthermore, there is no minimum limit for staked tokens, which makes the SOL token one of the best staking coins.

Cardano has long been referred to as the "Ethereum Killer". Improving the Ethereum network was also the declared goal behind the development of Cardano. In contrast to ETH, Cardano has been using proof-of-stake for a long time. This year, the value of the native ADA token increases massively, especially in autumn.

The annual return at Cardano Staking averages 6%. In addition, Cardano scores with the lack of a mandatory “lock-in period”, during which the staked tokens cannot be mobilized.

Binance is the largest crypto exchange in the world. Their own platform Token Binance Coin was a huge success and is now the third-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. The Binance ecosystem will benefit from the increased trading activities on the entire crypto market in the future.

The minimum use of tokens for staking is extremely small and the Binance offers very high staking returns. BNB is one of the best options among staking coins, especially for investors who are new to staking. You can get to Binance here.

Ethereum is the second-largest cryptocurrency after Bitcoin and the largest network for decentralized applications. In the future, it has the potential to become the dominant network for staking. Investors have already deposited $ 21 billion worth of coins into the Ethereum 2.0 staking pool. 

ETH still has a few question marks among staking coins. The transition from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake only started in the last few months. Nevertheless, the network offers huge potential for high staking returns through its already existing enormous amount of adoption.