Staking

Locking tokens in a protocol to secure the network or earn yield.

Staking can mean two distinct things. In proof-of-stake consensus, staking means locking native tokens (ETH, SOL, ATOM) as collateral to participate in block production — slashing penalizes misbehavior. In DeFi yield contexts, "staking" often just means depositing tokens into a contract that pays rewards, with no consensus role.

The two are sometimes conflated by projects that want their yield product to sound foundational. Onyx distinguishes them: only consensus staking gets the protocol-security treatment in scoring.