You may think of staking as a less resource-intensive alternative to mining. It involves holding funds in a cryptocurrency wallet to support the security and operations of a blockchain network. Simply put, staking is the act of locking cryptocurrencies to receive rewards.

In most cases, you’ll be able to stake your coins directly from your crypto wallet, such as Trust Wallet. On the other hand, many exchanges offer staking services to their users. To get a better grasp of what staking is, you’ll first need to understand how Proof of Stake (PoS) works. PoS is a consensus mechanism that allows blockchains to operate more energy-efficiently while maintaining a decent degree of decentralization (at least, in theory).