Business
Bit Digital, Inc. Announces Commencement of Ethereum Staking Operations, Partnership with Blockdaemon
NEW YORK, Dec. 22, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Bit Digital, Inc. (Nasdaq: BTBT) ("Bit Digital" or the "Company"), a digital asset mining company headquartered in New
About this update from Bit Digital, Inc.
[{"type":"text","content":"NEW YORK, Dec. 22, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Bit Digital, Inc. (Nasdaq: BTBT) (\"Bit Digital\" or the \"Company\"), a digital asset mining company headquartered in New York, is pleased to announce that it has formally commenced Ethereum staking operations. Bit Digital intends to delegate, or stake, its ETH holdings to an Ethereum validator node to help secure and strengthen the blockchain network. Stakers are compensated for this commitment in the form of a reward of the native network token.\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n \nThis marks an expansion from Bit Digital's core bitcoin mining operation to also validating transactions on the Ethereum blockchain. While the Company remains bullish on bitcoin, and supporting the bitcoin blockchain, it expects to derive revenue from the Ethereum network via validator rewards.\nThe Company's staking operations are enhanced by a new partnership with Blockdaemon, the leading institutional-grade blockchain infrastructure company for node management and staking. Following a similar mechanism to traditional Ethereum staking, Bit Digital will also participate in liquid staking via Portara, the liquid staking protocol developed by Blockdaemon and StakeWise and the first of its kind tailored to institutions. Liquid staking allows participants to 1) achieve greater capital efficiency by utilizing their staked ETH as collateral and 2) withdraw from staked positions earlier than natively possible by trading their staked ETH tokens on the secondary market.\nUnlike other liquid staking solutions, Portara's key differentiator is that it ensures that users can only interact with verified counterparties. As a result, several regulated institutions which were previously unable to participate in liquid staking have now on-boarded with Portara and are actively liquid staking.\nAs of December 20, the Company had 7,904 ETH and 2,004 sETH-h with a combined worth of approximately $12.1 million. 2,164 ETH were actively staked as of that date, using either native staking or liquid staking protocols. The Company intends to continue accumulating Ethereum and stake substantially all of its ETH position over time.\nBryan Bullett, Bit Digital's CEO, commented: \"We are excited to expand from our core bitcoin mining business into validating transactions on the Ethereum blockchain. This diversification into another blue-chip digital ...