The CertiK foundation is a non-profit research-driven organization with a mission to give people the power to trust across all facets of smart contracts and blockchain ecosystems. It hopes to raise the security standards across the space through its various ecosystem products and initiatives.
- The ecosystem consists of CertiK Chain, CertiK Security Oracle, CertiKShield Pool, Skynet, the DeepSEA compiler, and DeepWallet.
- The CertiK Chain is a public platform built with the Cosmos SDK.
- CTK is the CertiK native token.
- The CertiKShield Pool is a decentralized pool of CTK used to reimburse assets from any blockchain.
Related: Staking coins: What is staking and how does it work?
CertiK at a glance
The company was founded in 2018 by Prof. Zhong Shao and Prof. Ronghui Gu of Yale University and Columbia University respectively, each highly regarded as specialists in the field of cybersecurity.
CertiK Chain
The CertiK Chain is the key component in CertiK's vision of building a more trustworthy blockchain infrastructure by mitigating often plagued security vulnerabilities where decentralized applications can be built securely. The chain is a Delegated Proof-of-Stake (DPoS) blockchain built on top of the Tendermint consensus as part of the Cosmos ecosystem. The Mainnet “Shentu” was successfully launched on October 24, 2020.
It provides a range of built-in components, such as the CertiK Security Oracle to facilitate the handling of security inquiries from other networks and protects crypto projects from malicious attacks; the CertiKShield membership that offers decentralized reimbursements of lost, stolen, or inaccessible crypto assets on any blockchain due to security issues; the DeepSEA programming language and compiler toolbox to write verified smart contracts; their own DeepWallet designed for staking and deployment of smart contracts; and more.
CertiK (CTK) token
The CTK token is CertiK’s native utility token with a circulating supply of $56M USD that is used for:
- Gas fees consumption for smart contract operations
- Staking for network consensus
- Rewards as incentives for strengthening the Decentralized Security Oracle
- Collateral (as active staking) and reimbursements in the CertiKShield Pool
- Community voting for governance
Proof-of-Stake (PoS) CTK staking
Validators such as ourselves at Stakewith.us (and builders behind Unagii) run nodes responsible for the chain operations and governance and will earn CTK rewards in return as incentives. Delegators (or users of Unagii) can help entrust security certifiers with their votes by delegating their stakes to us on the Unagii platform to receive a portion of the block rewards that validators receive, and also have the opportunity to vote on certain proposals if desired.
Staking CTK allows Unagii users to earn yield from inflationary rewards as an incentive to stake, plus a portion of fees paid by CertiKShield Pool members who reserve liquidity within the pool. Rewards are paid out on a per block basis and users can choose to withdraw or compound rewards at any time.
Note that staking risks apply which include slashing involved for downtime and double signing. There is also a 21 day unbonding period for users when unstaking CTK from the network. During this period, users will not earn rewards and will be susceptible to slashing.
View more info: Stakewith.us validator details
How to stake CTK?
Staking CTK on Unagii is simple and convenient:
- Head to app.unagii.com/stake/certik
- Connect your wallet
- Stake CTK
