Holding naked $LINK in a cold wallet is a choice, but in 2026 it's getting hard to defend. About 1 in 6 staked LINK now goes through stake.link. 7.2M LINK, about $83M, helping secure @chainlink. Native staking pays. It also locks you in. The community pool is full. 40,875,000 out of 40,875,000. The cap is 15,000 LINK per wallet. Leaving means a 28-day cooldown, then a 7-day claim window. No seat. No trading. No collateral. Liquid staking fixes all three. Deposit LINK, get stLINK. 1 stLINK = 1 staked LINK. Forever. stLINK rebases. Rewards land weekly, straight into your wallet balance. Nothing to claim. Simple as. ~4.77% after fees. The native community pool base rate is 4.42%. About the same or more, and it stays liquid. "But the pool is full." The Priority Pool takes any amount of LINK. If there's room, it stakes at once. If not, it waits in the queue and goes in automatically. ethereum:0xa95c5ebb86e0de73b4fb8c47a45b792cfea28c23 stakers get priority in that queue. ...Or skip the queue. Curve's stLINK/LINK pool holds ~$5.4M and swaps both ways. Need out? Swap back on Curve, or withdraw through stake.link, often in 1 to 7 days, sometimes instant. Native ethereum:0xb8b295df2cd735b15be5eb419517aa626fc43cd5 does one job. wstLINK does two. wstLINK is stLINK, wrapped. The amount in your wallet doesn't increase. Each wstLINK is worth more LINK over time instead. 1 wstLINK = 1.2478 LINK today. That fixed balance is what lets it work as collateral in DeFi protocols, while it keeps earning staking rewards. If your collateral isn't earning, it's just sitting there. None of this is a deck slide. It's onchain. stake.link's node operators hold 68% of the Chainlink operator pool. 693,081 LINK has been paid to stLINK holders since launch, after fees. Skipping ethereum:0xa95c5ebb86e0de73b4fb8c47a45b792cfea28c23 is a mistake. More LINK staked means more fees going to ethereum:0xa95c5ebb86e0de73b4fb8c47a45b792cfea28c23 stakers, paid in stLINK. Lock ethereum:0xa95c5ebb86e0de73b4fb8c47a45b792cfea28c23 as reSDL NFTs and your boost runs from 1x with no lock to 9x at 4 years. At 9x, the latest weekly payout projects to up to ~9% a year. reSDL is an NFT, so a lock can be transferred. 30.5% of all SDL is already locked as reSDL. Average lock: just over 3 years. Tourists don't lock for 3 years. They max lock it. Naked LINK in a cold wallet earns nothing. Staked LINK in a full pool earns, and sits. stLINK earns and moves. Pool is open Marines, hop in. @stakedotlink.

With blue-chip asset like staked $LINK, security comes first. The new bug bounty program by @CertiK is now live - up to $250,000 for finding a bug in stake.link @stakedotlink.