Ankr announces token model change for all Reward Bearing and Earning Tokens

Everything you need to know about Ankr’s move to rename all reward-bearing tokens and discontinue support for reward-earning tokens to streamline users’ liquid staking experience.

Today, Ankr is happy to announce that we are adopting a new nomenclature for our token model that will see the names of reward-bearing tokens change and the removal of our reward-earning tokens. This is a strategic decision we feel will best serve our community of holders, stakers and liquidity providers.

Our new token model ensures users can start using Ankr Staking easily and efficiently by removing reward-earning tokens that are still not supported across many DeFi platforms.

Currently, there are two types of Liquid Staking tokens in the Ankr ecosystem:

• Reward Bearing Tokens (c-tokens), e.g. aETHc formerly aETH
• Reward Earning Tokens (b-tokens), e.g. aAVAXb and aETHb (formerly fETH.)

The new nomenclature will see all reward-bearing tokens change names based on a new, more consistent standard. aETHc becomes AnkrETH; aBNBc becomes AnkrBNB; aAVAXc becomes AnkrAVAX, and so on.

At the same time, we are discontinuing the use of reward-earning tokens (aAVAXb, aETHb, aBNBb, etc).

There will be a period during which we will gradually stop active support of b-tokens. Holders of b-tokens can exchange them for c-tokens at any time. There will be no minting of new b-tokens and no further DeFi support.

You can read more about converting b-tokens to c-tokens in our tutorial here.

The reason for this change is the lack of support by DeFi protocols for rebase tokens in general. The benefit of liquid staking rebase tokens, such as the 1-to-1 redemption price and ability to more easily create Stable Liquid Pools with low slippage is becoming less relevant.

When compared to one year ago, there are significantly more StableSwap pools offering custom pools to accurately setup stable liquid pools for reward-bearing tokens, whose redemption price is not 1-to-1. With more than 50 liquid staking protocols available across several chains, we have been noticing that most users understand that most liquid staking tokens are reward-bearing and how to extract value from them.

Will Any Ankr Services Be Affected by the Change?

Ankr’s services are not changing and will continue to provide everything you are used to with even more features on the way.

The name change for c-tokens will be automatic with no need for users to do anything. We feel confident it will contribute greatly to simplifying the user experience and help us make Ankr’s product message cleaner and better suited for Web3.

What Role Do Reward-Bearing Tokens Play In Ankr Network and the broader DeFi scene?

Rewards-bearing tokens are often issued by DeFi protocols based on the service provided. This could be borrowing, lending, or providing liquidity. In the case of Ankr, the c-tokens are issued to those staking their assets using the protocol’s staking contract.

Reward-bearing tokens represent the amount of assets staked at issuance PLUS future staking rewards. The amount of reward-bearing tokens issued is always equivalent to the amount of staked assets (ETH, AVAX, BNB, etc.).

At the end of the asset staking period, AnkrETH/AnkrBNB/AnkrAVAX/etc holders can redeem their reward-bearing tokens for their original stake plus all accumulated staking rewards. The rewards accumulated by reward-bearing tokens are reflected by Ankr’s redemption price.

However, market prices on decentralized exchanges might differ from the redemption price, which is subject to an unbonding period depending on the underlying Proof-of-stake network. Selling liquid staking tokens on a decentralized exchange provides immediate liquidity, but no guarantee that the market price is the same as Ankr’s redemption price.

Have Other Questions?

To learn more about the new token model, please visit our community channels. You can also ask any questions about the issue through our Staking Chat platform. We'll be holding a couple of AMAs in the near future so keep checking back.