The 8 Best Crypto Staking Coins for Maximum Yield in 2022 - MoneyMade (2024)

Most people are earning pennies by keeping their cash in a regular savings account, and while some investments offer passive income in the form of dividends, yields can still be fairly small, and there's risk involved.

While staking crypto is not risk-free, it is seen as a lower-risk way to earn potentially massive yields on your savings and investments—if you convert your cash to some of the best crypto staking coins first.

If you're looking to get into staking, choosing the right crypto to stake is one of the top considerations. Here are 10 of the best staking crypto coins.

Whether you can earn enough passive income to live off staking crypto depends on how much you stake and for how long, as well as the future value of the coins you're staking and the interest rate you're earning.

Staking your crypto through an exchange is the easiest way to get into staking crypto, but the interest rates, although much higher than what you'd earn with a savings account or even other low-risk investments, typically aren't enough to live off of unless you've got a massive balance. You can earn higher yields—sometimes enough to live off of even if your balance isn't full of zeroes—through DeFi staking. However, this can be riskier and requires a good amount of knowledge in the areas of DeFi and crypto.

As a buy-and-hold method for profiting off crypto, it can be less risky than day trading crypto but isn't without risks of its own. While high staking rewards are a top consideration, the volatility of the crypto you invest in needs to be taken into account as well—if the price of your crypto takes a big hit, so do your profits. It's also important to consider liquidity and the process for unstaking your crypto, as some staking strategies require you to lock up your money for a certain period of time.

1. Ethereum 2.0 (ETH)

While Ethereum used to be a proof-of-work model, meaning you couldn't stake Ether (ETH), the Ethereum 2.0 upgrade, in an attempt to cut energy consumption, shifted to a proof-of-stake model, which means you can stake Ether. Not only is Ethereum extremely popular and well-established, but you can find places to stake ETH that offer anywhere from 4% to 10% or more. However, right now ETH that is staked has to be locked up for an unknown period of time, so don't expect to be able to withdraw or trade your coins any time soon.

2. Polkadot (DOT)

Created by Ethereum co-founder and a top Ethereum competitor, Polkadot (DOT) is one of the best crypto staking coins. Not only is this a well-established coin with a bright future, but many platforms are offering DOT staking rewards of 14% right now, which could generate a healthy stream of passive income for you. While there's a lockup period of 28 days, it's worth it to invest in a promising crypto coin with high yields.

3. Cardano (ADA)

Ethereum's other big competitor, Cardano (ADA), is also one of the best crypto staking coins. While it generally offers a lower yield than DOT, with interest rates hovering around 4% to 8%, there's no lockup period with ADA. In addition to this flexibility, Cardano also has a significant community behind it, and the platform is fairly easy to use.

4. Tezos (XTZ)

Tezos uses a liquid proof-of-stake model and relies on cryptocurrency XTZ. When you stake your XTZ, you can earn around 5% to 6% in interest, and there's no lockup period. However, you won't start receiving rewards for the first couple of weeks as there's an initial period in which your assets have to be confirmed.

5. Algorand (ALGO)

Algorand's ALGO is another favorite for best crypto staking coins thanks to the platform's low fees and low staking minimum. The process of staking ALGO is also fairly easy, and the current yield is around 5% to 6%. Plus, you only need to have one ALGO coin to become a validator, and the price of one ALGO coin sits between $1.00 and $2.00 as of late 2021.

6. Cosmos (ATOM)

Staking rewards for Cosmos (ATOM) are at a generous 10% as of late 2021 if you stake in a wallet rather than an exchange. It's also been gaining steam recently, with a current market cap of over $5.3 billion. As a blockchain, Cosmos links many different blockchain platforms together and offers promising technology to the DeFi world.

7. Polygon (MATIC)

Polygon connects Ethereum-based decentralized apps (dApps) and appears to be a promising investment in 2022. As a staking coin, MATIC offers rewards of 10% to 14%, plus there's no lock up period. It's also extremely efficient, with the ability to validate up to 65,000 transactions per second.

8. Avalanche (AVAX)

As a borrowing and lending platform, Avalanche is a DeFi platform that offers borrowing and lending solutions within crypto and is considered to be one of the most stable DeFi platforms. You can start earning rewards within two weeks of staking your AVAX, and you can currently earn between 10% and 14% APY.

You can also stake your crypto in a staking pool through a number of different DeFi wallets, and some of them offer even higher rates. However, this can involve a little more setup work and technical knowledge to get started.

Either way, you'll need to choose which of the best crypto staking coins you want to invest in and purchase some through a crypto exchange. In addition to the exchanges mentioned above, Coinbase also offers many of the coins mentioned above.