# StakingBoard

> Plain-English directory of every legitimate way to earn yield in crypto — native staking, DeFi pools, liquid staking, stablecoin yield, lending, LP positions. Built for people who hold ETH, BTC, USDC, SOL, ADA and want to know "what's the best realistic return on this token right now, on which chain, with what risk?" without first having to decode "TVL", "APY", "LST", or "ilRisk".

StakingBoard answers one question per surface: **"I have X — where can I earn on it?"** Asset pages aggregate every option (native staking + DeFi) across every chain. Chain pages walk a novice through what the chain is, its native coin's reward rate, and which apps live on it. Pool pages show a single concrete position with its base APR, reward APR, total APR, pool size, and honest risk framing. Validator pages name a specific operator on a specific chain with its commission, total stake, slashing history, and live network signals. The data refreshes hourly and is cross-checked with consensus medians where multiple independent sources cover the same field.

## Data sources

Primary aggregators feeding our pipeline:

- **DeFiLlama** (yields.llama.fi/pools, api.llama.fi/protocols) — staking and DeFi pool yields, protocol TVL, audit metadata, chain TVL deployments. Refreshed hourly.
- **CoinGecko** — asset market caps, circulating supply, USD spot prices for assets we track.
- **Individual chain RPC / LCD endpoints** — native staking APR, validator-set composition, slashing parameters, unbonding times. Per-chain adapters: Ethereum (beaconcha.in), Solana (Stakewiz overlay), Cosmos family (LCD endpoints), Polkadot (Subscan), Cardano (Koios), Sui (Suiscan), Aptos (node API), NEAR (RPC), Avalanche (P-chain RPC), Tezos (tzkt), Polygon Heimdall (heimdall RPC), Tron (TronGrid), TON (toncenter), Hyperliquid (HyperRPC), Stacks (Hiro API), and ~10 more.
- **CommodityTrack** — USD price snapshots for tracked assets, hourly cadence, used for the impermanent-loss simulator.
- **L2BEAT** — maturity stage, category (Optimistic / ZK / Validium), 5-axis risk rosette for L2 chains.
- **CrUX (Chrome User Experience Report)** — Core Web Vitals field data for SEO monitoring.

We aggregate; we do not originate. Where multiple sources cover the same field (e.g. a chain's native staking APR), we publish the consensus median and expose `apr_as_of` / `metrics_updated_at` timestamps for downstream verification. If a single source becomes stale (>30 days no fresh data), it is automatically deactivated and the field falls back to remaining live sources or hides the value entirely.

## Audience

Newcomers to crypto — people arriving from traditional finance, tech, or any other industry who recognise tokens like ETH / BTC / USDC / SOL by name and want a clean answer to "what's the best return on this?". Explicitly not built for DeFi power-users who already know how to read protocol contract addresses or compare gas-adjusted break-even of LP ticks. Every numeric answer is one confident headline figure, with the detail behind a drill-through.

## Core directory pages (browse here first)

- [Home](https://stakingboard.com/): Token-first index — every recognisable asset (ETH, USDC, SOL, ADA, BTC-derivatives, stablecoins) with its best available reward rate and where to find it.
- [Assets](https://stakingboard.com/assets): Full asset catalogue grouped by family (ETH-family, BTC-family, USD stablecoins, native L1 coins). Each row shows best reward, current price, market size.
- [Chains](https://stakingboard.com/chains): All supported networks (Ethereum, Solana, Cosmos Hub, Cardano, Polkadot, Avalanche, Sui, Aptos, NEAR, Tron, TON, Stacks, Hyperliquid, ICP, Tezos, Polygon, BNB Chain, Celo, Fantom, Algorand, MultiversX, Hedera, Flare, Cronos, Moonbeam, Moonriver, Beaconcha (Ethereum), and 4 Cosmos appchains: Stride, Akash, dYdX, Celestia, plus L2s like Arbitrum/Base/Optimism/Linea/Scroll). Sortable by total value held, native reward rate, app count.
- [Pools](https://stakingboard.com/pools): Atomic yield positions across staking, LP, lending, farming, CDP. ~17K live rows. Filter by chain, category, asset, stablecoin-only.
- [Protocols](https://stakingboard.com/protocols): Apps offering yield (Lido, Aave, Curve, Uniswap-v3, Pendle, Spark, Karak, EtherFi, …). Audits, launch date, code health surfaced.
- [Operators](https://stakingboard.com/operators): Cross-chain validator brands (P2P.org, Figment, Coinbase, Binance, …). One row per brand summarising chains operated, total stake, weighted commission.
- [Validators](https://stakingboard.com/validators): Individual stakeable entities — a specific operator on a specific chain. Per-validator commission, slashing history, uptime where available.
- [Calculator](https://stakingboard.com/calculator): "$X of TOKEN at Y% for N years" with realistic compounding cadence per chain.
- [Compare](https://stakingboard.com/compare): Side-by-side comparison of up to 4 entities (chains / assets / protocols).
- [Inflation](https://stakingboard.com/inflation): Per-chain real-yield framing — nominal APR minus net token issuance.

## Key novice guides (first-time stakers)

- [How to start staking](https://stakingboard.com/guides/how-to-start-staking): Step-by-step — pick a token, pick a chain, pick a route (native validator vs liquid staking vs custodial), execute.
- [How much can I earn staking](https://stakingboard.com/guides/how-much-can-i-earn-staking): Native-staking-only — what $1,000 of ETH, SOL, ADA, DOT, ATOM, AVAX earns at current network rates.
- [How much can I earn in DeFi pools](https://stakingboard.com/guides/how-much-can-i-earn-in-defi): The higher-rate companion. Lending, LP, farming on $1,000 of ETH, USDC, USDT, DAI, SOL, WBTC. Honest risk framing — smart-contract, IL, depeg, oracle, reward-token, bridge.
- [What is staking](https://stakingboard.com/guides/what-is-staking): One-paragraph definition; how it differs from mining; what gets paid for what.
- [What is a validator](https://stakingboard.com/guides/what-is-a-validator): The role; why operator brand matters; commission economics.
- [What is liquid staking](https://stakingboard.com/guides/what-is-liquid-staking): Receipt tokens (stETH, rETH, jitoSOL); what they unlock; what they introduce.
- [Liquid staking tokens explained](https://stakingboard.com/guides/liquid-staking-tokens-explained): How LSTs work end-to-end, why stETH ≠ ETH on a DEX, and what depeg means.
- [APY vs APR](https://stakingboard.com/guides/apy-vs-apr): The compounding difference and why we usually quote APR.
- [Real yield vs nominal APY](https://stakingboard.com/guides/real-yield-vs-nominal-apy): Why a 14% headline APR can be –2% real yield once inflation is netted out.
- [Stablecoin yield](https://stakingboard.com/guides/stablecoin-yield): Lending vs farming; what counts as low-risk; what doesn't.
- [Staking risks explained](https://stakingboard.com/guides/staking-risks-explained): Slashing, smart-contract risk, depeg, custody risk, in plain English.
- [Centralised vs non-custodial staking](https://stakingboard.com/guides/centralised-vs-non-custodial-staking): Coinbase/Binance vs running your own validator vs liquid staking — what each costs you.
- [Best wallets for staking](https://stakingboard.com/guides/best-wallets-for-staking): Per-chain wallet options for novices.
- [Staking taxes 101](https://stakingboard.com/guides/staking-taxes-101): Plain framing; not legal advice.

## Drill-through paths (mental model)

A first-time visitor's path is always **token → chain → route → validator (or pool)**:

1. Land on `/assets/eth` because they hold ETH.
2. See the headline best APR (e.g. ~3.0%), then a ranked list of routes — solo validator (3.5%), Lido stETH (3.0%), Coinbase staking (2.4%) — with one-line explainers.
3. Click "Lido" → `/protocols/lido` shows what the protocol is, audit status, TVL, code health.
4. Or click "Solo validator" → `/chains/ethereum/validators` ranks individual operators by APR + commission + slashing history.

The reverse path (pool-first, expert-style) exists at `/pools` but the home funnel never starts there.

## Data model — what gets surfaced

Five primary entities, in order of user importance:

- **Asset** — what a user recognises by name. Carries family (ETH / BTC / USD / SOL / native L1) and kind (native / wrapped / liquid-staking / stablecoin). Example: stETH is `family: ETH, kind: lst`.
- **Chain** — the underlying network. Each chain has exactly one canonical asset (its native coin) and a curated count of pools, protocols, and assets deployed on it.
- **Pool** — atomic yield position with a single APR. Categories: staking, liquid-pool, lending, farming, CDP.
- **Protocol** — the app behind a pool (Lido, Aave, …) with audits, launch date, code health, fees/revenue where available.
- **Validator + Operator** — for native staking. Operator is the brand (P2P.org); Validator is one operator-on-one-chain entity with its own commission and stake.

Per-chain native vocabulary is preserved without normalisation. Cosmos chains expose `unbonding_time`, `slash_fraction_double_sign`, `min_commission_rate`. Solana exposes `slotsInEpoch`, `taper`, `vote_pubkey`, `delinquent`. Polkadot exposes `bonded_owner`, `slash_defer_duration`, `count_nominators`. Each surfaces on the chain or validator page only when present, in the chain's own terms — chain-specific signals are not flattened into a fake universal column.

## Per-chain network parameters and validator signals

Chain detail pages render a "Network parameters" section pulling live values from the chain's own RPC / explorer. Validator detail pages render an "Extra signals from this chain" section. Examples of what's surfaced today:

- **Ethereum (beacon)** — network APR via beaconcha.in; per-validator effectiveness for opted-in operators.
- **Solana** — epoch position, slots-per-epoch, inflation taper curve, foundation share; per-validator vote pubkey, last vote slot, root slot, delinquent flag, software version, skip rate, vote credits, ASN concentration (via Stakewiz overlay).
- **Cosmos family (Cosmos Hub, Osmosis, Injective, Sei, Neutron, Kava, Stride, Akash, dYdX, Celestia)** — staking + slashing + mint params (unbonding time, max validators, min commission rate, downtime jail duration, slash fractions, inflation rate change, goal bonded, blocks per year); per-validator min self delegation, delegator shares, jailed status with timestamp, commission rates and max change.
- **Polkadot (+ Moonbeam, Moonriver via Subscan)** — current era, validator count, nominator count, slash defer duration; per-validator bonded owner, count nominators, grandpa vote weight.
- **Cardano** — pool pledge, fixed cost, margin, saturation; per-pool delegator count, blocks produced, retiring status.
- **Sui** — voting power, next epoch stake, gas price; per-validator commission rate, pending delegation, software version.
- **Aptos** — recurring lockup, voting power increase, rewards rate; per-validator lockup expiration, network address.
- **NEAR** — epoch height, num block producers per shard, max gas price, transaction validity period; per-validator shards, num produced chunks vs expected, slashed flag.
- **BNB Chain** — per-validator consensus address, vote address, credit address, pool BNB balance, reward BNB.
- **Avalanche P-chain** — per-validator node ID, tx ID, weight, potential reward, delegation fee, uptime.
- **Tezos** — per-baker frozen deposit, blocks count, missed blocks, double baking count, slashings (via tzkt overlay).
- **Polygon Heimdall** — per-validator uptime percent, signer address, self stake, current state, contract address.
- **Tron** — per-super-representative vote count, brokerage, rewards.
- **TON** — pool size, share rate, tax-rate, validator count.
- **Hyperliquid** — per-validator stake, jail status, commission.
- **Stacks** — stacking pool size, cycle status, payout method.
- **Polygon, MultiversX, Hedera, Algorand, Cronos, Celo, Fantom, ICP, Flare** — per-chain APR + the chain-native parameters their public APIs expose.
- **L2BEAT overlay** — for L2 / rollup chains: maturity stage (Stage 0 / Stage 1 / Stage 2), category (Optimistic Rollup / ZK Rollup / Validium), 5-axis risk rosette (sequencer failure, state validation, data availability, exit window, proposer failure), TVS, 7d change.

Every signal degrades gracefully — when a field is unavailable for a given chain or validator, the row hides rather than rendering a blank or zero.

## Data freshness

- Pool yields, protocol metrics, asset prices: refresh hourly.
- Native staking adapters: Cosmos family and Solana run every 15 minutes for validator-level updates (jailings, commission edits, delinquent flag); other chains run hourly or daily depending on cadence the chain itself updates.
- Asset tokenomics (market cap, supply): daily.
- L2BEAT risk overlay: daily.
- Every page exposes ISO 8601 timestamps in `<time datetime="...">` elements for AI / crawler extraction.
- Every multi-source field passes through a consensus median; the public surface reflects the median, not any single source.

## Structured data

Every entity page emits JSON-LD: `Organization`, `WebSite`, `BreadcrumbList`. Detail pages add domain-appropriate types: `FinancialProduct` for pools and assets, `FAQPage` for the question/answer block. Numeric facts (APR, total stake, commission, pool size, market cap, TVL) appear inline as plain text matching the JSON-LD values, in plain prose suitable for AI direct-answer extraction. FAQ content is visible on-page and mirrored in JSON-LD so extraction and rendering stay in sync.

## Risk framing

Every page that surfaces a yield number also surfaces its honest risk profile in plain English:

- **Native staking risks**: slashing (network maximum % per offense, per chain), unbonding period (in days), validator-jailing risk if the operator goes offline, commission changes.
- **Liquid staking risks**: depeg of the receipt token vs the underlying, smart-contract risk on the issuer, secondary-market liquidity risk if exiting via DEX rather than redeeming.
- **DeFi pool risks**: smart-contract risk on the protocol, impermanent loss on LP positions (called out plainly without acronym-first), oracle risk on lending positions, depeg risk on stablecoin pairs.
- **Custodial routes (Coinbase, Binance, Figment)**: counterparty risk, regulatory risk, withdrawal-queue risk during stress events.

## Internationalization

Every public page is localised across 6 languages: English (default), Vietnamese, German, Spanish, Chinese, French. Path prefix is the locale code except for English. `hreflang` alternates link every locale variant of every URL.

## Sitemap

https://stakingboard.com/sitemap.xml — index that fans out to per-kind sitemaps for chains, protocols, operators, validators, plus the static set (home, assets, pools, calculator, guides, compare, inflation, corporate pages). Per-locale variants of every URL are emitted as `xhtml:link rel="alternate"`.

## Editorial principles

- Plain English everywhere; no acronyms on first use without explanation.
- One confident headline number per row; details behind a drill-through.
- Chain-specific signals stay in chain-specific terms. We do not invent fake universal columns.
- Nil values hide, not zero out.
- Risk is named explicitly on every yield surface, never glossed.