Coinbase Custody announced staking support for Cosmos tokens this week through a Medium post, opening another income stream for institutional clients. The update means Cosmos holders can generate retu
Coinbase Custody announced staking support for Cosmos tokens this week through a Medium post, opening another income stream for institutional clients. The update means Cosmos holders can generate returns from their tokens without moving funds onto trading platforms.
Bryce Ferguson, the product manager for Coinbase Custody, said: "We are excited to announce that we now provide clients a secure and seamless way to stake their Cosmos (ATOM)." Coinbase modeled the service after its Tezos offering. Offline storage systems keep tokens secure while they earn rewards. Through Coinbase's interface, token holders decide what to stake and choose whether to delegate stakes to Coinbase's own validators or to third-party operators.
Coinbase declined to disclose returns or fees for the Cosmos staking service.
The platform already hosts validators for Tezos and Algorand. Coinbase has run a Tezos validator since April 2019 and operates the network's largest validator, recording zero slashing incidents. That track record shields users from forfeitures that occur when validators break protocol rules.
Tezos staking on Coinbase carries a 25% fee, steeper than the competition. Kraken charges 7.25% for comparable service, while Binance charges nothing. Binance's broader staking program covers 15 tokens, including Tezos, Algorand, Cosmos, and EOS.
ATOM has seen turbulent trading since its launch. The token reached $7 in July 2019, then fell to $1.90 in September. It bounced back to $5 in early January before collapsing to $1.55 during the March 12 market crash. The token trades at $2.61 with a market cap of $497 million, holding the 25th position among cryptocurrencies, above Zcash, NEM, and Ontology.
