Question 1

What is stake.link?

Accepted Answer

stake.link is the leading delegated liquid staking protocol for the Chainlink ecosystem, founded in 2017 by LinkPool. It operates as a decentralized, trust-minimized protocol that facilitates delegated liquid staking into Chainlink's official staking pools, managed by a consortium of 15 top-tier Chainlink Node Operators. When users deposit LINK, the protocol strategically allocates tokens across both the Community Staking Pool and the higher-yielding Node Operator Staking Pool, delivering a blended reward rate that typically exceeds what community stakers earn through native Chainlink staking alone. Users receive stLINK, a liquid receipt token that represents their staked LINK plus accrued rewards, enabling full DeFi composability while their underlying LINK continues securing the Chainlink network. The protocol is governed by the stake.link DAO through the SDL governance token.

Question 2

What is stLINK and how does it work?

Accepted Answer

stLINK is the liquid staking token issued by stake.link when users deposit LINK for staking. It represents your staked LINK position plus all accrued staking rewards. stLINK operates through an automatic rebasing mechanism: approximately every two days, staking rewards are calculated and the stLINK supply increases proportionally, automatically growing your wallet balance without any manual claiming or compounding. This means your stLINK balance continuously increases over time. Unlike natively staked LINK which is locked for a minimum 28-day unbonding period, stLINK maintains full liquidity and DeFi composability — it can be transferred, traded on decentralized exchanges, used as collateral on lending protocols like Aave and Morpho, deposited into yield optimizers like Beefy, or wrapped as wstLINK for protocols that require non-rebasing tokens. Withdrawals through stake.link typically process within 1-7 days, and sometimes instantly if liquidity exists in the Priority Pool.

Question 3

What is the SDL token and why should I stake it?

Accepted Answer

SDL is the governance and fee-sharing token of the stake.link protocol, serving three critical functions. First, SDL is a fee token — staking SDL returns a percentage of all protocol fees generated across the platform. These fees scale directly with the amount of LINK staked and rewards flowing through the protocol, meaning SDL stakers benefit from protocol growth. Second, SDL is a governance token that grants voting rights in stake.link DAO decisions through the governance forum at talk.stake.link, where proposals (called SLURPs) shape the protocol's future direction, fee structures, and treasury management. Third, staking SDL provides priority access to LINK staking deposits through the Priority Pool — when Chainlink's native staking capacity is full (currently capped at 45 million LINK), users with higher reSDL holdings receive preferential access to new staking capacity as it becomes available.

Question 4

How does stake.link compare to native Chainlink staking?

Accepted Answer

stake.link offers significant advantages over native Chainlink staking across four key dimensions. Yield: stake.link delivers a blended APY by staking across both the Community Pool and the higher-yielding Node Operator Pool — the Node Operator pool has a fixed reward allocation that can produce substantially higher effective rates when not fully utilized, and stake.link passes this blended rate to all depositors. Liquidity: native Chainlink staking locks your LINK for a minimum 28-day unbonding period with a 7-day claim window, while stake.link issues liquid stLINK tokens that can be used immediately in DeFi (Aave, Morpho, Beefy, CowSwap) or traded on DEXs. Withdrawals: stake.link processes withdrawals in 1-7 days, sometimes instantly via the Priority Pool, versus the mandatory 28-day lockup in native staking. Auto-compounding: stLINK rewards compound automatically through rebasing approximately every two days, while native staking rewards must be manually claimed and restaked, reducing effective yield for passive stakers.

Question 5

What analytics does stakedotlink.money track?

Accepted Answer

stakedotlink.money is the community-built analytics dashboard for the stake.link protocol, funded through governance proposal SLURP-60. It provides comprehensive real-time on-chain analytics including: Total Value Locked (TVL) across all staking pools with historical trend data; stLINK and SDL staking APY with breakdowns by reward source; Chainlink staking pool utilization rates and boost multipliers; DeFi integration yields tracking returns across Curve Finance, Morpho, Beefy, Folks Finance, and Uniswap; governance proposal monitoring with voting statistics; whale movement alerts tracking large staking and unstaking transactions; Priority Pool queue depth and estimated wait times; historical reward distribution data with interactive charts; and portfolio tracking when users connect their wallets. All data is sourced directly from on-chain smart contracts via the LinkPool subgraph, with Chainlink price oracles providing USD valuations — no centralized APIs or third-party data providers.

Question 6

What is the Priority Pool?

Accepted Answer

The Priority Pool is a core feature of the stake.link protocol designed to provide fair and efficient access to Chainlink's native staking capacity, particularly when the official pools are full (currently capped at 45 million LINK). When maximum capacity is reached, any LINK deposited into stake.link is automatically queued in the Priority Pool. Unlike a simple first-come-first-served queue, access to available staking spots is meritocratically prioritized by your reSDL (staked SDL) holdings — users with greater commitment to the stake.link protocol receive preferential access. As soon as space opens in the Chainlink staking contracts (due to unbonding or capacity increases), the protocol automatically stakes queued LINK starting with highest-priority users. Once staked, stLINK is minted and made claimable. The Priority Pool effectively eliminates the need for users to constantly monitor staking capacity and manually time their deposits.

Question 7

What is wstLINK and how is it different from stLINK?

Accepted Answer

wstLINK (wrapped stLINK) is an ERC-4626 compatible wrapper around stLINK designed for DeFi composability. The key difference is how rewards are represented: stLINK is a rebasing token — your wallet balance increases automatically every two days as rewards are distributed. wstLINK is non-rebasing — your token balance stays fixed but each wstLINK becomes worth more stLINK over time as rewards accrue. wstLINK exists because many DeFi protocols (lending markets, yield optimizers, cross-chain bridges) cannot handle rebasing tokens technically. By wrapping stLINK into wstLINK, users can supply it as collateral on Morpho, provide liquidity in the Curve wstLINK/LINK pool, deposit into Beefy yield strategies, or bridge it cross-chain — all while continuing to earn Chainlink staking rewards through the appreciating exchange rate. Converting between stLINK and wstLINK is always available at the current exchange rate with no fees.

Question 8

What are the risks of liquid staking with stake.link?

Accepted Answer

stake.link, like all DeFi protocols, carries several risk categories that users should understand before depositing. Smart contract risk: the stake.link protocol contracts have been audited, but no audit eliminates all risk — a contract vulnerability could result in loss of funds. Slashing risk: Chainlink's staking system includes a slashing mechanism for malicious or poorly performing node operators; while stake.link's 15 NOPs are professionally operated, a slashing event would reduce the underlying LINK balance and stLINK value. Liquidity risk: stLINK's DeFi liquidity (on Curve, Uniswap, etc.) determines how close to 1:1 you can trade it for LINK — in periods of market stress, stLINK may trade at a discount before redemption. Withdrawal timing: redemptions through stake.link take 1-7 days and depend on available liquidity. Protocol risk: governance changes via SDL token holders could alter fee structures or protocol behavior. Chainlink staking cap risk: if the Chainlink staking cap is not increased, LINK may queue in the Priority Pool earning reduced or no rewards until capacity opens.

Question 9

Which DeFi protocols support stLINK and wstLINK?

Accepted Answer

stLINK and wstLINK are integrated across multiple DeFi protocols, providing stakers with additional yield opportunities on top of base Chainlink staking rewards. Curve Finance hosts wstLINK/LINK liquidity pools on both Ethereum and Polygon, enabling deep liquidity for swaps with additional CRV and SDL incentives. Morpho offers two lending vaults where wstLINK can be used as collateral to borrow other assets, or supplied to earn lending yield. Folks Finance provides cross-chain DeFi access for wstLINK on Algorand-adjacent chains. Uniswap v3 hosts a stLINK/LINK concentrated liquidity pool for efficient small swaps. Beefy Finance offers auto-compounding yield strategies built on top of Curve positions. All live DeFi integration yields are tracked in real time on the stakedotlink.money analytics dashboard under the DeFi Integrations section.

Question 10

How many node operators validate stake.link staking?

Accepted Answer

stake.link is operated by a consortium of 15 professional Chainlink Node Operator Principals (NOPs) — the same operators that run critical Chainlink oracle infrastructure securing billions of dollars in DeFi. These are not anonymous validators; they are established, professionally operated entities with reputations at stake in the Chainlink ecosystem. The 15 NOPs collectively manage LINK allocation across the Chainlink Community Pool and the higher-yielding Node Operator Pool, optimizing for the blended reward rate distributed to stLINK holders. This institutional-grade operator set is a key differentiator from other liquid staking protocols — the security model depends on the same professional infrastructure operators that Chainlink itself relies on. The full list of current NOPs and their allocation percentages is visible on the stake.link analytics dashboard.

Question 11

What is reSDL and how is it different from SDL?

Accepted Answer

reSDL is a locked version of SDL represented as a non-fungible token (NFT), created when users lock their SDL tokens for a chosen duration. The key difference from SDL is compounded benefits: while SDL is the liquid governance token, reSDL provides a reward boost multiplier ranging from 1x (no lock) up to 9x (maximum lock duration), earned protocol revenue share in the form of additional stLINK rewards, enhanced voting power in governance proportional to the lock amount and duration, and priority access to LINK staking capacity through the Priority Pool. The reSDL NFT represents the locked position and can be transferred but not split — the entire locked amount moves together. When the lock period expires, users can either extend the lock to maintain their boost or withdraw back to liquid SDL. reSDL is the mechanism that aligns long-term protocol participants with protocol health — the longer and more you commit, the greater your share of protocol revenue.