Holding and staking ION improves the network’s stability and of course, delivers profit for you.

You can only stake ION in the Ion Core Wallet.

You can stake ION and xION, which is the private version of the coin, they are identical but the transactions of the private one xION are 100% anonymous.

ION’s network is based on a static share of rewards in a 50/50 manner. What this means is that the block reward is always split in half between stakers and masternodes.

Winning the chance to validate transactions and receive a payout for your service depends mainly on coin age and to a certain extend – coin weight. Age means the duration a wallet keeps the digital assets.

The reward itself is a result of the amount of ION kept in the wallet to enhance the security and stability of the network.

The old version of POS required “checkpointing” by a dedicated full node signed by the developers to verify coin stake before adding the block to the chain. With ION staking, every node on the network is a full node which means that this “checkpointing” system is no longer needed and the options for network attacks are decreased with its removal.

The stake reward as mentioned before is 50% of each discovered block. For the period between block 570,064 and block 1,013,539 the reward is 5.75 ION for each side. The approximate ROI (return of investment) rate is around 25% per year, while stakers with 1000 ION or more should expect 21.4 coins per month.

Main risks include lock-up periods and price fluctuation.

Also, consider slashing risks if running your own node.