Greetings, Shade Protocol community!

We're excited to announce the official launch of Bond Staking. This unique version of staking allows users to earn $SHD ('shade') yield by locking up their $SHD over a specific timeframe. This is considered the first version of staking, with a more feature-complete version involving veSHD and multiple staking strategy options to be released in the near future.

Vesting Options for Bond Staking

Bond Staking offers three vesting options:

1. 7 days (10% APR)

2. 30 days (16% APR)

3. 90 days (20% APR)

These options allow users to earn $SHD by locking up their $SHD governance tokens for a certain vesting period. Unlike traditional staking, Bond Staking is a more engaged version. At the end of each vesting period, to continue earning yield, a user must claim their principle plus accrued rewards from the staking bond, and then deposit their SHD once again into a bond.

Bond Mining Process

Navigate to app.shadeprotocol.io/bonds

(2) Select a SHD <—> SHD bond opportunity

(3) Put in an input amount

(4) Buy Bond

(5) Navigate to https://app.shadeprotocol.io/bonds/claim and wait the vesting period (7,30, or 90 days)

(6) Claim the initial principle + accrued rewards

(7) Deposit the claimed SHD into another staking opportunity

(8) Repeat ad infinitum.

Benefits of Staking

Staking is a mechanism by which users can benefit from rewards accrued to Shade Protocol. Decentralized governance via SHD token holders staking will have the ability to vote and allocate funds to various initiatives. Rewards that accrue to staking come from the following Shade Apps:

• ShadeSwap trading fees

• ShadeLend interest fees

• ShadeLend liquidation fees

• ShadeDAO liquidity farming

• ShadeDAO L1 staking

• stkd-SCRT minting fees

• stkd-SCRT withdraw fees

In the future, additional fee streams will be built out as more Shade Apps are launched, all accruing value back to the ShadeDAO which can be redirected back to stakers via decentralized governance.

Privacy in Staking

All tokens that interact with ShadeBonds use the SNIP token standard of Secret Network, which have the following key features:

• Private token balances

• Private token transactions

Due to the private and fungible nature of $SHD tokens, the amount of tokens that you are staking remains entirely encrypted. In the future, this privacy feature of staking will play a key role in governance. Users will be able to privately vote on proposals without revealing their staked amounts.

Future Staking Plans

One of the unique components of Bond Staking V1 (as well as future versions) is the ability for stakers to choose from multiple strategies with different risk profiles. The longer the lock-up, the greater the return given to reward these long-term holders. Shade Protocol will potentially experiment with various long-term strategies beyond the 7, 30, and 90-day staking bonds.

In the future, staking will utilize different strategies for your locked collateral - giving the users greater yield and potentially a more powerful voice in governance.

Conclusion

Shade Protocol is an ambitious array of application-layer products focused on a simple end-user experience that involves the incorporation of privacy by default. These interconnected privacy-preserving DeFi products built on Secret Network will change DeFi as we know it — empowering the next generation of value creation and exchange. Shade Protocol is launching Silk: a privacy-preserving collateralized, reflexive stablecoin built on Secret Network.

Without privacy, DeFi is incomplete. Traditional financial markets offer a degree of privacy for users, and as a result offer up greater protections in some capacity than existing DeFi markets. Shade Protocol will be the world’s first truly cohesive decentralized and privacy-preserving financial applications — ushering in a golden era for Web3. Shade Protocol will always push for privacy by default, privacy as an expectation, and privacy as the key to unlocking the full value of a decentralized future.

But we can’t do this without community. We need you to join our community and help make Silk and Shade Protocol a reality.

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Information provided in this post is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute formal investment advice. Please read the full disclaimer at shadeprotocol.io/disclaimer before relying on any information herein.