Bitstamp CEO says he’s been ‘blown away’ by interest in ether staking – as exchanges gear up for ethereum 2.0

Bitstamp CEO says he’s been ‘blown away’ by interest in ether staking – as exchanges gear up for ethereum 2.0

The CEO of crypto exchange Bitstamp has been "blown away" by the amount of interest in staking on the platform, as excitement builds around a sector that JPMorgan believes could be in five years' time. Crypto staking is when users put up their own tokens to gain the right to validate transactions on blockchain networks and earn more cryptocurrency as a reward. Bitstamp added ethereum staking to its offering in July. The exchange was started in 2011 and is the . "We have been ... blown away, if that's the right term, in terms of the amount of interest that has come," Bitstamp CEO Julian Sawyer told Insider this week. He did not disclose how much had been staked so far, however. Sawyer said Bitstamp users who were choosing to stake ether — the cryptocurrency of the ethereum network — were on average staking 50% of their holdings. "That says a lot. That is not people playing [and saying] 'oh, I'll just put 1%, 10% over there, I'll put a hundred dollars into this.' That is people being engaged in the product set and the interest rate." Excitement has built around staking thanks in large part to the ethereum network's