Ark – A Promising Staking Coin (~7% Yield) You Can Safely Hold In A Hardware Wallet
Recent market events have inclined me towards securing the last bits of my crypto-portfolio that remain outside cold storage. As always, you should never leave more funds in an exchange (or any hot wallet) than you are willing to lose in the event of a potential hack. You can never foresee all possible contingencies, so assume that even two-factor-authenticated hot-wallets (anything permanently connected to the internet) are potentially insecure.
Anyway, I've had my eye out for coins that hit the trifecta for medium-term or longer holding. For me, those are:
- Is a fundamentally promising project.
- Can be easily kept in cold storage / hardware wallet (essentially un-hackable)
- Can stake for a return while cold-storage secured.
Ark is one of the few projects I've come across that tick all boxes...and yes, for the sake of full disclosure, I do own some Ark.
I won't delve too deeply into the fundamentals here, but Ark is essentially a blockchain designed to help link other blockchains together to manage trading and transfers between different currencies. It has an 8 second block time and both transfers and confirms transactions very quickly. It's website and desktop wallets are all very professional. Ark is a Delegated-Proof-of-Stake coin, similar to Steem, which rewards you for staking with an annual yield around 7% currently (slightly higher if you choose your delegate well).
Now, a quick glance at a price chart for technicals:
As we can see, Ark is about 60% of it's all-time high in both US $ and Bitcoin. The drop in the US $ price line below the Bitcoin price line is not on any substantial Ark news, and it's reasonable to assume a baseline scenario in which the US $ price line crosses back above the Bitcoin one. Regardless of which asset you price it in, there was a healthy and complete correction to $2.50 in USD and .00050000 in Bitcoin.
Ark has a rather sophisticated wallet that supports locking your coins via a Ledger Nano S, which should make staked coins in your Ark wallet nigh un-hackable. The wallet even auto-hides itself from your print-screen key, so you don't inadvertently send sensitive info in an unrelated screenshot.
Ark stakes via a delegate system, not too unlike Steem. The top 100 delegates all "forge" blocks based on the total weight of those who vote for them as delegates, then split that amount with their voters less a small fee for services. All delegates are tracked by Ark's own block explorer at https://explorer.ark.io/delegate-monitor
I've done the work and picked out a delegate for you (no affiliation). Biz_classic has numerous advantages for staking:
- High pool loyalty, has never dropped out of top 100 so you never need to change your vote. This is useful, as voting costs 1 Ark.
- Biz_classic refunds your voting and transfer fees, ALL transfers (if you set your account up properly), for life.
- Very high payout percent to voters, one of the highest.
- Biz_classic runs a fair faucet, if you are inclined, and gives bonuses to voters on rolls.
- Cool website for tracking rewards
- Discord for support.
- Compound your un-redeemed staking rewards, so you don't lose compound interest, and lets you set your withdrawal schedule to minimize fees.
It really doesn't get any better than that list, so if you decide to stake, check out Biz Classic here:
We also have a Radio Station! (click me)
...and a 5000+ active user Discord Chat Server! (click me)
Sources: BuyingArk.com, Forum.Ark.io
Copyright: Ark.io, CoinTelegraph
I don't get much of the delegating and staking process, so I invest in coins that are reputed in general among masses and pick them at good prices, hold them until a good pump, sell some and rebuy.
Ark seems like a good project to me. I have noticed some good traders doing TA and FA of ARK on twitter, analyzing its charts, it could be a good buy.
So I will buy some as soon as I get some BTC back from my altcoins investments.
Thanks for sharing the good info.
Do you know about any upcoming news, releases or anything else about it in the next few months about ARK except its blockchain conference on 24th Feb 2018?
"Do you know about any upcoming news, releases or anything else about it in the next few months about ARK except its blockchain conference on 24th Feb 2018?"
I'm afraid I do not. You can check the Ark Reddit for their roadmap, however.
Okay, hope you have a bright future with ARK.
Nice article :-)
I have problem to understand use case of all those blockchains like ARK designed to help connection between other blockchains.
Do you need to lock tokens while you stake?
There appears to be no lock-in or maturing period. I think this is why they added the cost of 1 Ark to vote.
You can add or subtract Ark from your wallet and it immediately raises or lowers your stake-weight on the fly, no delay necessary.
(Note that I could be mistaken...)
Thanks
@lexiconical Ark wasn't a project i gave my interest, not even a bit of it. Perhaps i listened to the wrong person or read some webpages that rims of more downsides to merits. But, in a way this posts give me a driving into seeing it for what it can be,
I am not admitting that i now understand.
But your post has rekindled in me the interest to look over it again. I'm a crypto investor.
Perhaps i could use your knowledge.
Thanks@lexiconical. Helpful posts!
I'm not saying to dive in or anything, but take a look if you are looking for a staking coin to diversify a bit into, and you are paranoid about security, like I am.
Thanks for all the great info. I currently have a little bit of ark. At 7% interest I think I am better off trying to trade up to a bigger stockpile, but the info on who to delegate to and how store ark while staking is very useful to me.
Thank you (and resteemed)
Happy to help. The staking info should prevent the need to do a search for a delegate, which is the most time consuming part of the process.
Seems to be on sale. I could pick some up.
Precisely why I decided to post about it now. No point in suggesting a possible coin for people to due their own due diligence on if it's at a price that's far too high.
u have my vote for witness
I appreciate that, but I don't actually run a witness at present! I do act as a proxy though, if you want me to vote for witnesses on your behalf.
Makes me sad I sold my ark when I did, but looking forward to buying back in so I can start staking.
Now might be a good time, before the market recovers too much!
Amazing piece of explanation here @lexiconical. Indeed, steemit has improved a lot and this is only making the platform to be attractive, addictive and user friendly.
Any news about Ark is welcome, i'm hodling it!!!
Good post and good information, upvoting and resteeming.
Thank you for the resteem.
Welcome and following you for more good posts. :D
thanks for the info.
is there a minimum for staking?
Not as far as I can tell.
That depends on the pool you are going to vote for. Some pools sets min amount, some welcomes all. You should read pool proposal on the forums before voting.
Here is the link for delegate proposals
https://forum.ark.io/category/5/delegates