How It Works

Protocol Architecture & Functionality

Mission

Kintsu is a Liquid Staking Protocol. Our mission is to boost the GDP of Proof-of-Stake blockchains by allowing users to participate in on-chain activities while also benefitting from the yield-bearing staking that secures the blockchain. We do this by providing stakers with a liquid token which is backed by the blockchain's staked native gas tokens. We call this a Liquid Staking Token, abbreviated as LST or sToken. This allows holders of the sToken to participate in on-chain activities using the sToken in place of the native gas token.

Note: Throughout these docs, you’ll see references to the Gas Token and sToken. Here, Gas Token refers to the blockchain’s native gas token, and sToken refers to the Liquid Staking Token (LST) provided by the Kintsu protocol.

How it works

Kintsu improves on Delegated Proof-of-Stake by allowing users to participate without themselves having to find and choose a validator to which to delegate. To accomplish this, Kintsu pools users’ Gas Tokens together and delegates them across a set of participating network Validators for staking, and gives those users collateral tokens (known as sTokens) that can be used to redeem their staked Gas Tokens at any time. The protocol maintains a decentralized list of participating validators, routes staking requests to them, and facilitates redemption requests on behalf of the user.