Crypto staking platforms: How to tell a staking platform is good?

Here's a checklist of things that help you tell a good crypto staking platform from a bad one.

How to tell good crypto staking platform from bad? Million dollar question, isn't it?

There are so many frauds out there. What about this one? The project is offering staking, but the team is anonymous, looks weird. The company's location is in some unknown island in pacific ocean. What do you think? Should you be investing in it?

What makes a good crypto staking platform? This article will offer you a checklist to help you evaluate the projects.

1/ Openness Pays Off

The key component of a good crypto staking platform is openness, both from project team and from platform itself. Transparency breeds trust, remember that, especially in crypto.

If a project is hiding something, there's probably a reason for it, doesn't matter what it says at official website. So the first thing I look at while evaluating a potential investment is if the team offers any information about their past experience in crypto industry or other businesses they were participating in before starting this one.

The basic research should include checking out LinkedIn profiles of all members, sorted by member's position in a company (CEO has his/hers own tab at top).

2/ Google

Search is your friend here. Try finding some interesting facts about team members that would confirm their prior experiences, like mentions in interviews or publications.

After this step I look at the company's roadmaps and product descriptions to see how detailed they are, if there are any tangible features listed (and not just 'will be implemented later'). Usually companies form a roadmap basing on different market research data but sometimes you get hints of potential partnerships with other businesses during early development stages.

However, keep in mind that no one can foresee the future 100%, so don't expect too much from open-sourced project to remain fully open-source after entering exchanges for example.

3/ Popularity on social media

Here we are getting on to the thin ice, because we all know that paid shills exist and it is not expensive to buy a couple of someone's tweets.

It is still often useful to see crypto community OGs recommending a platform, or on the other hand trashing it. Edward Snowden does that with a lot of dodgy crypto projects - and that man certainly has enough independent income to make his word reliable.

However, this point is really hit or miss. Remember that the initial marketing campaign of Ethereum made it look totally like a scam.

4/ Activity online

Although most of fraudulent projects don't even last for a month, I would still like to include this parameter into my quick analysis checklist.

I check out the project's activity on Twitter and Facebook (if possible, Telegram as well). If there is an official news channel with over 500 members and quite active discussions going on - it's a good sign. But again, this is not always true, so keep your mind open and don't jump to conclusions too quickly based on this fact alone.

5/ Telegram Communities

Telegram groups are huge these days. You can get instant contact with the project's community by joining its chatroom. Usually, if a platform is really popular, it has its own Telegram group where you can ask questions to the developers directly. Sometimes I trace which other platforms are using the same backend infrastructure for their staking services and join them just to become familiar with their audience that way - this always helps me in my whitepaper analysis later on.

6/ Whitepaper Review

Whitepapers have evolved from being dull scientific papers into something closer to product roadmaps these days. However, there are still some standards of solid blockchain research papers, so read through carefully looking for any negative aspects or future changes.

I usually read whitepaper out loud and imagine a 'normal' person reading it for the first time to see if he/she understands what benefits particular project has over established crypto competitors or current fiat payment systems. You can also check for plagiarism with cute tools like Cerekov, although nobody is going to copy-paste competitors whitepapers just to win a couple of easy ICO bucks.

7/ Obvious Red Flags

If you have been in crypto business long enough, there are certain red flags that you instantly recognize just by glancing at company's site.

For example: no info about key team members posted anywhere - bad sign; no info about roadmap whatsoever - even worse sign, extremely long and boring legal disclaimers at the end of whitepaper - an absolute red flag.

No technical audit - well, that's pretty bad too.

8/ Test the waters

If you've established that a new staking platform is reliable, don't just go all in. Stake small amounts through them at first.

Remember that even the technology is new. Even with all the research you did, a staking platform still may fail you through a technical bug in the code. It does happen!

So, test them before you go all in.

There are platforms that promise 5% per month or so. I would not be comfortable with anything over 4%. And my final decision about whether to stake through a particular platform would always depend on the actual results of my tests.