Chapter 9

Staking on Other Chains

Staking is not Ethereum-only — Solana, Cosmos, Polkadot, Avalanche, and others use PoS with chain-specific delegation rules, lockups, and reward mechanics.

Before staking alt-L1 tokens long term, compare unbonding, inflation, and delegation UX.

Cross-chain staking snapshot

Chain	Model	Unbonding	Notes
Cosmos	Delegate to validators	~21 days	Governance via staked tokens
Solana	Delegate SOL	2–3 days	Fast epochs, auto-compounding rewards
Polkadot	Nominated PoS	28 days	Nominators share validator slashing
Avalanche	Delegate AVAX	2 weeks	Subnet validators for app chains

Network outages on Solana historically affected validator rewards — operational risk is real even when delegation feels passive. Liquid staking availability varies widely by chain.

On Cosmos, delegate ATOM or OSMO to validators and earn native-token rewards while participating in governance. Choose validators by commission rate, uptime, and decentralization — not just highest APY.

Polkadot's nominated proof of stake lets nominators back validators with DOT, but slashing can affect nominators if a validator misbehaves. Check inflation rate, validator minimums, and whether liquid staking exists before committing capital long term.