Wave
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Staking

Stake WAVE, earn USDC. Protocol revenue is paid to stakers in dollars; the rest buys WAVE and burns it. No lock-up, no fee to stake or unstake.

How it works

  • Every wave pays revenue to the protocol: a share of the trading fees on waves held by Wave, and a one-time fee on self-custody waves. Nothing comes from deposits or withdrawals.
  • A keeper sells that revenue for USDC.
  • Every batch of USDC is split. Half streams to stakers over seven days. The other half buys WAVE on its pool and sends it to the burn address — out of circulation for good.
  • While a stream runs, every second's worth is split between stakers in proportion to their stake. Stake 10% of the pool, earn 10% of every second.
  • A new batch during a running stream is folded into it and the seven days restart, so nothing is ever left behind.
Note

The stream is why there's nothing to gain from timing it. Staking the day before a batch earns one day of that batch, not the batch.

Holding WAVE has a second use

Hold 500,000 WAVE or more — in your wallet, staked, or both — and every self-custody wave you build pays the holder rate: 0.05% of the deposit instead of 0.1%. It's checked when you build; nothing to sign up for.

Staking

  1. Open Stake in the header and connect your wallet.
  2. Enter an amount of WAVE. The first time, you'll approve and then stake; after that it's one transaction.
  3. Rewards accrue in USDC from the next block. Your claimable balance updates on the page as it grows.

Claiming and unstaking

  • Claim USDC sends your accrued USDC to your wallet and leaves your stake in place.
  • Unstake takes out the amount you enter. Your rewards stay claimable.
  • Unstake all + claim does both in one transaction.
  • There's no waiting period on any of these.

The earlier vault

Before the USDC vault, staking paid in WAVE. That vault is retired: it receives no new revenue, its last stream runs to its end, and it still counts toward the holder rate. If you have WAVE in it, the Stake page shows it under Earlier vault with one button to claim and unstake — then stake in the USDC vault to keep earning.

Reading the numbers

  • Total staked — everything staked by everyone, and what share of supply that is.
  • Staking APR — the USDC the current stream pays per year, against the dollar value of everything staked. It's a snapshot, not a promise: it changes with every batch, every stake and the WAVE price, and shows "—" when no stream is running.
  • Streaming now — the USDC still to be paid out from the current batch, and when it ends.
  • Burned — the WAVE sent to the burn address so far.
Tip

Revenue scales with how much liquidity is earning fees through Wave, so the APR follows the protocol's usage. Early on, batches are small and arrive when there's enough to bother converting.