Ankr teams up with ssv.network in a push for a trustless and more secure form of ETH Liquid Staking

In May, we covered Ankr after the Web3 infrastructure provider partnered with Pocket Network in a major push to achieve a fully decentralized infrastructure for the Web3 ecosystem. Since then, the Ankr team has been busy working behind the scene with partners to improve liquid stalking.

Today, Ankr announced it has inked a partnership agreement with ssv.network, a leading distributed validator technology infrastructure protocol. The partnership will see Ankr integrate ssv.network’s advancements in distributed validator technology to improve risk management and validator performance.

The collaboration will also promote decentralization across nodes in a completely trustless manner. Combining this technology with Ankr Liquid Staking will lead to increased monetary safety for all that hold liquid-staked derivatives from Ankr.

Over the next few months, Ankr will continue to expand its operator and validator base in tandem with ssv.network for a timely and effective integration into the protocol’s distributed network of node operators. Additional steps will be taken to stress test, ensure stability, and also test out some of the staking and delegation incentives considered for the network.

The teams behind both protocols will continue to collaborate to enhance the current staking and node-running experience for the growing liquid staking economy.

“We are excited to have Ankr as part of the SSV ecosystem. Ankr were one of the first ETH liquid staking pools in the space, their team has incredible tech foresight and the ability to execute fast. The same applies for their decision to become early adopters of DVT and build a next gen staking pool on top of ssv.network. This is going to take staking to the next level,” said ssv.network Lead Alon Muroch.

This milestone comes at a time when the market is showing increasing interest in liquid staking solutions. Staking is currently a $9 billion business for the crypto economy and it is projected to reach $20 billion following the Ethereum merge. If this trend remains stable and proof of stake becomes the dominant protocol, it could reach $40 billion by 2025.

Filipe Gonçalves, Chief of DeFi at Ankr, said, “Ankr’s partnership with SSV.Network provides everything that our users desire from liquid staking – the highest levels of security and decentralization with stable and attractive yields. As the demand for staking increases, we will scale alongside it with the ability to provide staking rewards to any number of new users.”

Ankr is ahead of the curve by pioneering liquid staking as a form to free up capital in crypto markets and ssv.network has the technology to provide a superior experience for stakers and node operators. Merging ssv.network’s Distributed Validator Technology model with Ankr’s liquid staking infrastructure will create the next generation of liquid staking protocols. Together, Ankr and ssv.network can shape the future of liquid staking by bringing about more decentralization, security, and accessibility for stakers and node operators on a global scale.

SSV technology is entirely new in the blockchain ecosystem. SSV stands for Secret Shared Validator, although this technology is also labeled as Distributed Validator Technology (DVT). It enables any validator node to split its keys between four separate operators to ensure a fail-safe system for node operation. DVT promotes client diversity, decentralization, and fault tolerance while mitigating slashing and downtime risks.

The distributed operation of an Ethereum validator enabled by SSV will be complemented by Ankr’s own liquid staking infrastructure. This includes the delegation of funds to trusted nodes, the introduction of liquid staking tokens to free up user capital, and cross-chain integrations to bridge liquid staking tokens to different blockchains for maximum earning opportunities.

Pairing Ankr’s agile infrastructure with distributed validator technology aims to provide the most accessible pathway for node operators of all sizes while reducing financial, technical, and risk hurdles.
The planned implementation of ssv.network will help to increase Ankr’s growing community of third-party node operators, improving monetary safety for all that hold liquid staked derivatives from Ankr.

Founded in 2017 by Chandler Song, Ryan Fang, and Stanley Wu, Ankr is a decentralized Web 3 infrastructure platform for the Web 3 World. Anker’s platform enables users to build, earn, and stake with $ANKR. Ankr currently serves an average of 6 billion blockchain requests per day across over 50 chains.

Ankr is building the future of decentralized infrastructure, servicing over 50 proof-of-stake chains with an industry-leading global node delivery system and a developer toolkit. Ankr Protocol processes over 50 chains and delivers an average of six billion blockchain requests every day Ankr serves over two trillion transactions a year across Web3 and is the RPC partner of choice for 17 blockchains, making it the dominant leader in RPC.