Introduction

LiNEAR Protocol is a non-custodial liquid staking protocol built on NEAR blockchain. You can stake $NEAR via LiNEAR Protocol, receiving PoS staking rewards same as every other $NEAR staker, but also receive liquid $LiNEAR token which could be used in DeFi protocols. Furthermore, you can unstake your $LiNEAR and receive back $NEAR instantly with no waiting time, while a small portion of fees will be charged.

The price of $LiNEAR goes up each epoch with staking rewards being accrued into the underlying staked $NEAR.

What is Staking?

Staking is when you lock crypto assets for a set period of time to help support the operation of a blockchain. In return for staking your crypto, you earn more cryptocurrency.

Many blockchains use a proof of stake consensus mechanism. Under this system, network participants who want to support the blockchain by validating new transactions and adding new blocks must “stake” set sums of cryptocurrency.

Staking helps ensure that only legitimate data and transactions are added to a blockchain. Participants trying to earn a chance to validate new transactions offer to lock up sums of cryptocurrency in staking as a form of insurance.

If they improperly validate flawed or fraudulent data, they may lose some or all of their stake as a penalty. But if they validate correct, legitimate transactions and data, they earn more crypto as a reward.

Popular cryptocurrencies Solana (SOL) and Ethereum (ETH) use staking as part of their consensus mechanisms.

What Is Proof of Stake?

Proof of stake is a consensus mechanism used to verify new cryptocurrency transactions. Since blockchains lack any centralized governing authorities, proof of stake is a method to guarantee that data saved on the network is valid.

Decentralization is at the heart of blockchain technology and cryptocurrency. There’s no central gatekeeper to manage a blockchain’s record of transactions and data. Instead, the network relies on an army of participants to validate incoming transactions and add them as new blocks on the chain.

Proof of stake is the consensus mechanism that helps choose which participants get to handle this lucrative task—lucrative because the chosen ones are rewarded with new crypto if they accurately validate the new data and don’t cheat the system.

With proof of stake, participants referred to as “validators” lock up set amounts of cryptocurrency or crypto tokens—their stake, as it were—in a smart contract on the blockchain. In exchange, they get a chance to validate new transactions and earn a reward. But if they improperly validate bad or fraudulent data, they may lose some or all of their stake as a penalty.

Why Linear?

Multi-rewards

Enjoy multi-rewards through engaging with various DeFi protocols on both NEAR and Aurora, maximizing your yield from staked assets.

Decentralization

Improve network security through delegating the stake to multiple reliable validators.

Liquidity

Instant unstaking at any time you want, to avoid the long lockup period.

How to Stake NEAR?

All you need to do is:

1. Open https://linearprotocol.org/

2. Connect your wallet

3. Type in the amount of $NEAR you want to stake

4. Click the "Stake" button and approve the transaction in your wallet

Connect your wallet

On the LiNEAR Protocol app, you will see the “Connect wallet” button at the top-right corner.

When you login LiNEAR Protocol, you will be asked to approve the authorization. Click on “Connect” to sign in LiNEAR Protocol successfully. After login, you'll be able to see your $NEAR balance in the LiNEAR Protocol stake form.

After a successful connection, Linear Protocol will automatically detect the amount of $NEAR you have in your wallet.

Decide the amount of NEAR to stake

Now let's start staking your NEAR tokens. First, just by typing in the amount of $NEAR you want to stake in the "Stake Your NEAR" section.

Click the "Stake" button, and you're all set

Now, just click the Stake button to stake your NEAR tokens. You'll be redirected to your wallet to confirm the transaction.

Upon approval of the transaction, you have now successfully staked your NEAR tokens and have received $LiNEAR in return.

Is LiNEAR Protocol custodial?

No, LiNEAR Protocol is a non-custodial protocol. This means that the tokens are 100% in user's control. Interaction with smart contracts and bots of LiNEAR Protocol is fully permissionless.

How long would it take to stake and unstake?

With LiNEAR Protocol, staking is instant. For unstaking, you can choose 1) instant unstaking with a small percentage of fees collected or 2) delayed unstaking without any fees. Your $NEAR will be available in approximately 49 hours. You will not receive rewards during that period.

Are staking rewards staked automatically?

When the new epoch begins, staking rewards in the last epoch are compounded automatically into the staked $NEAR and reflected by $LiNEAR price appreciation.

What fees does LiNEAR Protocol charge?

The fee structure of LiNEAR Protocol is shown below:

Stake: 0%

Delayed unstake: 0%

Instant unstake: 0.3%~3%

Commission: 1% on staking rewards

Will LiNEAR Protocol have governance tokens?

Yes. LiNEAR Protocol will be governed by CornerstoneDAO. Cornerstone is a metagovernance protocol deployed on NEAR that acts as the governance hub for DeFi, Web3, social, gaming and more in the NEAR-Aurora ecosystem.

$CORN is the native token of Cornerstone and will be used as the governance tokens for LiNEAR. More details will be revealed soon.

Phoenix Bonds

Phoenix Bonds is a principal-protected bonding platform that help protocols with liquidity-bootstrapping and provide perpetually-boosted yield to users. Phoenix Bonds can work with all yield bearing assets. The first version will be launched for $LiNEAR, the staking derivative token of LiNEAR Protocol.

Bond

Users bond $NEAR, which goes into the Pending Bucket, and accumulates balance of $pNEAR over time. All $NEAR in the Pending Bucket will be deposited into LiNEAR protocol to generate staking rewards.

If you are a $LiNEAR holder and want to bond $NEAR without unstaking, you could choose to bond by depositing $LiNEAR. Please note that principal protection of Phoenix Bonds is defined in terms of value in $NEAR. This means you may receive less $LiNEAR than what you bonded when cancelling the bond, because $LiNEAR price always grows every epoch.

Cancel

Users can withdraw the bonded amount of $NEAR anytime before they choose to claim $pNEAR.

Claim

Users can claim the accumulated $pNEAR anytime after bonding. One bond can only be claimed once. After claiming, users get the accumulated $pNEAR, while their bonded $NEAR (now staked as $LiNEAR) enters the Reserve Bucket and the permanent bucket.

A 3% commission is collected upon claim on every bond, which will be mainly used to incentivize $pNEAR/$NEAR liquidity.