$16.7 million worth of decentralized finance (DeFi) liquidity protocol Kyber Network’s KNC token have been locked up in staking within 24 hours of the service’s launch.
The milestone was noted by Kyber co-founder Loi Luu, who tweeted to announce that nearly 10.5 million KNC had already been staked.
Hype for the launch drove a major rally over the months leading up to the staking commencement, with the price of KNC more than tripling against the dollar since late-April. However, KNC has posted a 10% price retracement since topping out roughly one week ago.
KNC/BTC since launch: Coin360
Kyber’s network also saw a surge in activity ahead of staking’s launch, with a record number of daily KNC transactions being executed last week.
With nearly 182 million KNC in circulation, 5.7% of the market’s total supply has been locked in staking. Kyber currently offers staking rewards of 0.05%, according to stakingrewards.com.
The increasing popularity of staking as a source of passive income has seen enormous shares of crypto assets’ circulating supply locked up, with more than half of the circulating supply for nine projects being designated towards staking.
More than 80% of Kava (KAVA) and Tezos (XTZ) are being staked, with Synthetix Network (SNX) and Cosmos (ATOM) seeing over 70%. More than 49% of the supply of at least 11 projects are locked in staking.