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RockX, a blockchain node network headquartered in Singapore, has announced the launch of Bedrock — an institutional-grade Ethereum liquid staking platform the company says is the world’s first that is AML and KYC compliant.
Bedrock is a non-custodial, on-chain and independent liquid staking solution that satisfies the regulatory requirements for institutions to seamlessly engage in large-scale liquid staking with built-in KYC/AML processes to verify all clients looking to stake more than 32 ETH but giving retail stakers the flexibility to retain anonymity.
This ensures that all KYC/AML compliance requirements are met for larger clients, allowing them to unlock crypto liquidity safely through a decentralised, crypto-native platform, RockX said in an announcement on Wednesday.
According to Bedrock, recent developments in the global staking market have raised uncertainty over the regulatory responsibilities of crypto companies. Current liquid staking solutions do not address the deep liquidity needs, transparency, security and compliance standards required for institutional liquid staking, it said.
Bedrock was developed to fill this void in the market, addressing institutional clients’ needs for greater capital efficiency when staking assets while still adhering to many of the regulations surrounding decentralised finance.
Singapore-based digital asset manager Amber Group – also the lead investor in RockX – will be one of the platform’s first institutional clients.
What's Liquid Staking?
Conventional crypto staking typically allows participants to earn staking yield in exchange for locking their tokens and pledging them towards the development of the blockchain.
Liquid staking enables stakers to instead receive a new token in place of their staked tokens, that represents their claim to the underlying staking pool and its yield, enhancing their capital efficiency. Bedrock’s token for staked Ether is uniETH (or universalETH) and the platform is designed to be able to incorporate liquid staking solutions for more Proof-of-Stake blockchains in the future.
Related: Liquid Staking: The Tooth Fairy & Magic Money – But Better
Bedrock also plans to incorporate distributed validator technology — open source protocols that decentralise the duties of many staking validators. This will allow stakers to collectively split validator keys required for staking between unrelated and even untrusted nodes, enhancing decentralisation, fault-tolerance and the overall health of the blockchain, the company said.
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