- Anchorage Digital launches custody and staking for STRK, targeting institutions.
- Current STRK staking offers an APR of 7.28%, above U.S. Treasuries.
- Starknet advances staking roadmap, including SNIP-31 for Bitcoin assets.
- Recent network upgrades and a brief outage underscore ongoing reliability work.
Institutional access to Starknet staking took a step forward as Anchorage Digital, a U.S.-chartered crypto bank, rolled out custody and staking support for STRK. The new option is launching with a headline annual percentage rate (APR) of 7.28%, positioning STRK staking as a competitive yield play for large investors.
The move builds on Anchorage’s existing role as a qualified custodian for STRK since January and aligns with Starknet’s decentralization roadmap. By staking STRK, holders help secure the network and, in return, earn protocol rewards under Starknet’s newly established mechanism.
Anchorage opens the gate to STRK staking
Anchorage Digital says it is enabling institutions to securely custody and stake STRK through a compliant, regulated setup. At today’s levels, the quoted STRK APR outpaces prevailing U.S. Treasuries (roughly 4.0%–4.5%), a gap that could widen if U.S. rates drift lower—making staking yields relatively more attractive for allocators.
Starknet Foundation leadership welcomed the expansion, framing it as a way to increase institutional participation in Layer 2 infrastructure. The collaboration is intended to offer a familiar, risk-managed path for funds that require institutional-grade controls to participate in network security.
How Starknet staking works and why it matters
Starknet is an Ethereum Layer 2 that leverages zero-knowledge proofs to batch and verify transactions efficiently. Staking, introduced earlier this year, lets STRK holders support the protocol’s operation while receiving rewards. As of the latest figures shared, Starknet ranks among the largest L2s, with about $545 million bridged to the network.
- Stakers lock STRK to help secure the protocol and validate activity.
- Rewards are variable and reflect network economics and participation.
- The mechanism advances Starknet’s decentralization goals over time.
Bitcoin assets set to join via SNIP-31
In a recent governance milestone, the Starknet community approved (by roughly 93.6% in favor) a proposal known as SNIP-31 to bring Bitcoin exposure into the staking set. Under the plan, wrapped BTC assets—such as WBTC, LBTC, tBTC and SolvBTC—would be eligible to participate, with BTC-linked assets proposed to hold about 25% of staking power and STRK accounting for the remaining 75%.
Market backdrop and yield comparison
With U.S. markets increasingly factoring in the possibility of lower policy rates, income-oriented crypto strategies are getting a closer look. STRK’s quoted 7.28% APR currently sits above comparable Treasuries, which helps explain why institutional staking—especially via a regulated custodian—continues to draw attention.
Reliability and recent upgrades
Starknet’s ongoing evolution hasn’t been without bumps. Following the rollout of the Grinta (v0.14.0) upgrade, the network experienced a brief outage in which gateways temporarily failed and transactions were not accepted. Operators executed a chain reorganization beginning at block 1,960,612, which replayed roughly an hour of activity and required users to resubmit affected transactions.
Developers reported restoration of block production and RPC services shortly after. While the incident—along with earlier, shorter disruptions in recent months—prompted questions about reliability, STRK’s price reaction was mixed: it slipped during the downtime and later rebounded by about 2.4% to trade near $0.1249 at that time.
What institutional participants can expect
Anchorage Digital positions itself as the first qualified custodian to support both custody and staking of STRK, aiming to provide a familiar operational framework for large allocators. The setup is designed to let institutions stake, collect rewards, and contribute to network security while maintaining compliance and segregation of duties.
For Starknet, more institutional staking can deepen the validator and delegator base, while upcoming steps—such as the SNIP-31 Bitcoin integration and ecosystem efforts around liquid staking and validator programs—could expand participation options. Together with Anchorage’s launch, these changes tee up a broader, institutional-scale staking track for STRK on Layer 2.
Anchorage’s rollout, the advertised 7.28% STRK APR, and Starknet’s staking roadmap (including BTC asset participation) point to a maturing, institution-ready pathway on this ZK-powered Layer 2; even so, participants will keep a close eye on operational resilience and upgrade cadence as staking adoption grows.
