RockX, a blockchain node network headquartered in Singapore, announces the launch of Bedrock — the world’s first AML and KYC compliant, institutional-grade Ethereum liquid staking platform to have gone live to the public.
Bedrock is described as “a non-custodial, on-chain and independent liquid staking solution that satisfies the regulatory requirements for institutions to seamlessly engage in large-scale liquid staking with built-in KYC/AML processes to verify all clients looking to stake more than 32 ETH but giving retail stakers the flexibility to retain anonymity.”
This ensures “that all KYC/AML compliance requirements are met for larger clients, allowing them to unlock crypto liquidity safely through a decentralized, crypto-native platform.”
As part of the launch, Amber Group, a digital asset manager and lead investor in RockX, will be “one of the platform’s first institutional clients, exploring new staking opportunities with Bedrock.”
This will help “to enhance product design and expand the reach of Bedrock’s revolutionary staking solutions to the wider institutional market.”
Conventional crypto staking typically “allows participants to earn staking yield in exchange for locking their tokens and pledging them towards the development of the blockchain.”
Liquid staking “enables stakers to instead receive a new token in place of their staked tokens, that represents their claim to the underlying staking pool and its yield, enhancing their capital efficiency.”
Bedrock’s token “for staked Ether is uniETH (or universalETH) and the platform is designed to be able to incorporate liquid staking solutions for more Proof-of-Stake blockchains in the future.”
To further enhance its offering to users, Bedrock is planning “to incorporate distributed validator technology — open source protocols which decentralize the duties of many staking validators.”
RockX has been heavily “involved in the conceptualisation and development of this first-of-its-kind solution, which when implemented will allow stakers to collectively split validator keys required for staking between unrelated and even untrusted nodes — an industry first that enhances decentralisation, fault-tolerance and the overall health of the blockchain.”
Zhuling Chen, CEO and Founder, RockX, said:
“Bedrock was built with compliance, transparency and security in mind, and was designed to help bring greater capital efficiency for institutions exploring staking. Using our industry-leading and state-of-the-art validator technologies, we now have a truly decentralized solution that can usher in a new age of staking for institutions.”
Annabelle Huang, Managing Partner, Amber Group, said:
“We are excited about the opportunities with Bedrock, a revolutionary and truly decentralised platform, that helps to address many of the pain points felt by institutional clients looking to get into crypto staking. Bedrock can help to bring about new levels of transparency and security into the staking industry, which will lead to greater professionalisation and acceptance of crypto in financial markets.“
Recent developments in the global staking market “have raised some uncertainty over the regulatory responsibilities of crypto companies.”
Current liquid staking solutions “do not address the deep liquidity needs, transparency, security and compliance standards required for institutional liquid staking.”
Bedrock was “developed to fill this void in the market, addressing institutional clients’ needs for greater capital efficiency when staking assets while still adhering to many of the regulations surrounding decentralized finance.”