Today, Blockdaemon and StakeWise are proud to announce the launch of their first ETH liquid staking solution built for institutions, called Harbour.Harbour is the world’s first KYC-compliant, institutional-grade liquid staking solution, built on Ethereum. With Harbour, financial institutions now have easy-access to liquidity, while staking funds on the world’s largest proof-of-stake blockchain. In this blog post, we’ll explore the challenges facing institutional staking today, and how Harbour offers the ideal solution.

The Challenge Facing Ethereum Staking

Ethereum is the world’s leading smart contract platform. It’s the blockchain of choice for thousands of projects, and millions of users. Ethereum connects users to DeFi, NFTs, DAOs and much more. ETH is Ethereum’s native cryptocurrency token.Liquidity powers Ethereum’s decentralized economy. In this economy, the native ETH cryptocurrency allows anyone to mint NFTs, launch their own custom tokens, generate rewards and much more. Each project is an island of boundless potential, kept afloat by its own pool of capital - the Ethereum network forms the bridges connecting these islands.Collectively, the global network of ETH holders are responsible for the network’s security. This security is maintained by staking. By staking tokens, Ethereum’s liquidity flows to trusted validators, the guardians of Ethereum decentralization. However staking has a major problem; staked ETH is locked-up and can’t be used in any promising Ethereum web3 projects.   Today, institutions need new tools and infrastructure to navigate the crypto landscape, or risk remaining anchored far from the lucrative opportunities that are available. Despite the limitless opportunities that exist, there has never been a fully compliant, safe onramp for financial institutions to benefit from Ethereum’s exciting web3 offerings.To solve this problem, Blockdaemon and StakeWise have built Harbour.

Portara is the Perfect Solution

Harbour is a safe port for your ETH tokens. It allows any institution to securely store and stake ETH assets in an audited and reward-generating smart contract. It lets you stake ETH holdings, while allowing participation in Ethereum DeFi. To guarantee that robust KYC & AML processes are strictly observed, Harbour ensures that all DeFi counterparties are whitelisted.

This strong compliance focus opens new, untapped opportunities with institutional investors, centralized exchanges, permissioned DeFi protocols, liquidity providers and market makers. When staking to Harbour, you receive a receipt token to represent your staked ETH. This receipt token can then be used across DeFi and more, allowing institutions to receive rewards while generating staking rewards. All rewards are then safely stored and secured by trusted custodians. Meanwhile, your staked ETH continues to receive rewards, powered by Blockdaemon’s world-class blockchain infrastructure. Staked assets are 100% protected by Blockdaemon’s comprehensive slashing insurance guarantee.

This shields customers’ funds from any risk of slashing. With Harbour as an easy on-ramp to liquid staking, it is now possible for an institution to maximize financial returns while aiding Ethereum’s decentralization.

Liquid funds can also be withdrawn instantly, skipping any exit queues. Liquidity is the lifeblood of web3 applications and Harbour is your fully compliant, institutional-grade Ethereum liquidity on-ramp. Join Harbour today to enjoy institutional grade liquid staking for the world’s leading smart contract platform.

Reach out to us now to begin your journey across Ethereum’s economy, powered by Harbour. Harbour is the latest product to be built on Blockdaemon’s industry leading blockchain infrastructure. Blockdaemon’s established infrastructure has powered products and services for over 50+ protocols and blockchains, including the world’s biggest and most well known Proof of Stake (PoS) blockchains. Institutional liquid staking is a powerful addition to Blockdaemon’s robust Ethereum portfolio.

Harbour joins other class-leading Ethereum products from Blockdaemon, including end-to-end node management, staking via Eth2 validators, archive nodes and rolling history, HA deployments, access to all major testnets, and dashboards for ease of reporting. Blockdaemon also provides Ethereum NFT Data, and RPC access via our Ubiquity API Suite.