Introduction - Definitions

This dashboard analyses the liquid staking in NEAR blockchain. Concretely, it will analyse the DEX swaps that from different tokens to stNEAR to see the volume, activity and ecosystem evolve in this particular aspect. First, let’s start with some definitions.

What is liquid staking❓

Staking is the process of actively participating in the validation of transactions. Thus, through this process anyone who has the minimum balance required (depending on the cryptocurrency this value varies) can participate in the Proof of Stake (PoS) process and earn rewards. The difference of liquid staking against staking is that it allows you to have your tokens and use it too (interesting in decentralised finance).

What is Meta Pool❓

Meta Pool is the ecosystem where NEAR liquid staking happens. But, how does this happen? With three simple steps:

1. NEAR is depositet into Meta Pool where it is distributed across performing validators and the earnings of staking rewards starts.
2. Then, stNEAR is the liquid token that represents the deposit with Meta Pool and it can be used across a growing number of DeFi apps.
3. Finally, stNEAR is deployed into the growing number of DeFi platforms for maximum capital efficiency and additional APY.

How it can be stNEAR obtained❓

To get stNEAR you have to liquid stake your $NEAR using the Meta Pool liquid staking platform. Or you can use swaps on DEXs (Ref Finance, Burrow, Bastion, Trisolaris, etc).

For each $NEAR token you liquid stake with Meta Pool, Meta Pool will give you a certain amount of stNEAR after the exchange. This dashboard will study the swaps on DEXs to analyse different trends and observations from the platform.

Source: metapool

Dashboard Purposes 📈

This dashboard aims to analyse $NEAR liquid staking through swaps on DEXs as per below parameters:

1. Volume of stNEAR month
2. Monthly deposits volume
3. Unique traders monthly
4. Maximum/Minimum/Median of stNEAR per month
5. Analyse token origin volume to stNEAR swaps monthly
6. Volume and deposits classified by token origin
7. stNEAR price - stNEAR swaps correlation analysis

Observations 👀

• Considering that the total stNEAR volume swap through DEXs is 2.28M and the total in metapool is approx 8.5M, swao DEX contribute in a 27% approx.
• The largest amount of liquid staking volume in one month is April ($stNEAR 457k).
• There is a clear correlation between the number of deposits and the stNEAR DEX swaps volume and the average stake size confirms that correlation.
• The number of different traders has decreased alongside time.
• The most common token for swapping to stNEAR is wNEAR (wrapped NEAR) with a total volume of 1.9M $stNEAR, followed by $OCT (312k $stNEAR).
• There is a correlation between swaps from stNEAR to wNEAR and vice versa.
• There is a correlation in liquid staking volume DEX swaps and stNEAR priceas both peaks in oct21 and apr21 are aligned with volume peaks.