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Crypto Staking Calculator

Nominal staking APY is not what you actually earn: token inflation dilutes it. This compares 4 major proof-of-stake coins by real yield, nominal APY adjusted for each network's own inflation rate, computed directly from each protocol's public formula, not copied from a data vendor.

By , founder and editor Updated

Nominal APY vs real yield, by coin

Sorted by real yield, the honest ranking. Nominal APY is what's usually advertised.

Coin Nominal APY Inflation Real yield
Cosmos Hub ATOM 15.6% 10.0% 5.1%
Tezos XTZ 7.8% 3.1% 4.5%
NEAR Protocol NEAR 5.5% 2.5% 3.0%
Cardano ADA 2.2% 1.3% 0.9%

Project your own stake

Nominal balance
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Real (today's money)
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Gap from inflation
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Green: your balance in nominal dollars, compounding at the nominal APY. Amber dashed: the same stake's value in today's purchasing power, compounding at the real yield.

The formula, and why headline APY overstates the story

Real yield = (1 + nominal APY) ÷ (1 + network inflation rate) − 1

The rewards for staking are in the form of newly created tokens by a blockchain protocol. This new creation of additional supply reduces the relative purchasing power of all existing (staked and non-staked) tokens as well. Therefore the true benefit to one person who stakes versus someone who takes no action is simply the difference between their personal reward rate and the rate at which the entire network dilutes its outstanding supply; not the actual stated APY.

A worked example, computed from the exact live data this page shows: Cosmos Hub (ATOM) currently pays a nominal 15.6% APY, but the network's own token supply is growing at roughly 10.0% a year. Real yield works out to 5.1%, using the formula above. Compare that with Cosmos Hub (ATOM), which advertises the highest nominal rate on this page at 15.6%, but whose real yield after its own 10.0% inflation rate comes out to 5.1%, the same coin. The headline number alone would have ranked these coins differently than the number that actually matters to your purchasing power.

Why only 4 coins, and why that's the point

Most staking calculators pull a number from a data vendor's dashboard and show it. This one doesn't, because most of those vendors' terms don't actually permit that number being redisplayed on someone else's site for free. Every rate above is instead computed directly from the issuing protocol's own public formula, using on-chain totals from a genuinely open source, the same discipline this site applies to every other data-backed tool. That is a real, deliberate constraint on scope: it rules out several very popular coins for now, Ethereum most notably, whose staking data isn't available this way without running real node infrastructure. The FAQ below explains each exclusion specifically rather than leaving it unexplained.

Cardano (ADA) is the smallest real yield on this page at 0.9%, not because it's a worse protocol, but because its current inflation rate of 1.3% sits closer to its nominal reward rate of 2.2% than the other three. That is exactly the kind of comparison a headline-APY-only table would never surface.

Frequently asked questions

What is "real yield" and how is it different from APY?
Nominal APY is the raw percentage a protocol pays stakers. Real yield subtracts the effect of network inflation, new tokens the protocol also creates for everyone, stakers and non-stakers alike, which dilutes the purchasing power of every token in circulation. The formula: real yield = (1 + nominal APY) / (1 + network inflation rate) − 1. A coin can pay a large nominal APY and still leave a staker with a small real gain in purchasing power, if its inflation rate is nearly as large.
Why does this only cover 4 coins?
Because this site will not display a staking rate it cannot verify from a source it is actually allowed to publish. Every popular third-party staking-data provider either has no free tier to license from (StakingRewards.com) or an explicit no-redistribution clause in its terms (CoinGecko, beaconcha.in, P2P.org). So every number here is computed directly from each protocol's own public issuance formula using open on-chain data instead, which is only realistic for coins with both a clearly documented formula and a genuinely open data source. That ruled out some very popular coins for now, including Ethereum, whose validator-level staking data isn't available from any public dataset or license-clear API without running real node infrastructure.
Why isn't Ethereum included? It's the most staked coin.
Because it cannot be done cleanly yet. Computing ETH staking yield accurately needs beacon-chain validator balance data, which is not present in any public blockchain dataset checked (including the BigQuery public Ethereum dataset, which only covers execution-layer transaction data) and no Ethereum Foundation-run public API with confirmed redisplay terms exists. The only clean path found is running consensus-layer node infrastructure, which is a real future project, not a data-sourcing task. Avalanche and Polkadot are excluded for similar reasons: a terms-of-service conflict on Avalanche's official API, and Polkadot's issuance model having changed twice in the last 18 months without a clear, current authoritative technical source yet.
Where does each rate actually come from?
Cardano's from Koios, a community-run API that returns the network's actual settled epoch rewards. Tezos's from TzKT, an open Tezos indexer, by summing the protocol's own documented block rewards. NEAR's from NEAR's own public RPC, reading the protocol's live inflation and reward-split parameters directly. Cosmos Hub's from a public Cosmos Hub node, reading the open-source Cosmos SDK mint module's live parameters. Every figure is computed from a protocol's own formula, not copied from anyone's dashboard. Full method and source link for each coin is in the table below and in Method and limitations.
Is this the same "real yield" StakingRewards.com uses?
The same formula, yes: docs.stakingrewards.com defines their "Real Reward Rate" the identical way, nominal reward rate adjusted by the asset's inflation rate. This is a recognized, standard way to express the concept, not something invented for this page. The difference is only in how the underlying nominal APY and inflation figures are sourced: computed here from each protocol's own public data, rather than pulled from a licensed commercial data feed.
Does this account for my specific validator or staking provider?
No, and it can't: every figure here is a network-wide average. Individual validators charge their own commission, typically 0% to 10% or more, which comes directly out of your share before it reaches you, and validator uptime affects your actual payout too. Whatever provider or validator you actually delegate to will pay somewhat less than the nominal figure shown here, sometimes meaningfully less. Treat these numbers as the ceiling a network can pay, not a quote from any specific platform.
Does this cover exchange staking (Coinbase, Kraken, Binance)?
No. Exchanges typically pay less than the protocol's own network rate, since they also take a cut, and their advertised rates change independently of the underlying protocol. This calculator answers a different, more fundamental question: what does the network itself actually pay, before any platform's markup or markdown, and how much of that is real after inflation.
How often is this data updated?
The rates shown were computed on 2026-08-17 from live network data at that moment. Staking yields move with real network conditions, how much of the supply is currently staked, current protocol parameters, so treat this as a recent snapshot rather than a number that updates as you watch it.

Method and limitations

Every figure is a network-wide average computed from each protocol's own public issuance formula on 2026-07-31, not a live feed and not specific to any exchange, wallet or validator. Real staking payouts are lower than the nominal figures shown here after a validator's own commission (commonly 0% to 10%+) and any downtime. Real yield nets out network-wide token inflation only; it does not account for the coin's own market price risk, which can move far more than any yield figure in either direction. Ethereum, Avalanche, Polkadot, Polygon and Tron are not included; see the FAQ for the specific reason each was left out rather than estimated.

Data sources

This tool runs entirely in your browser. Nothing you enter is sent to us or stored.

For general information and education only. This is not financial advice and not a recommendation to buy or sell anything. This tool is provided as is, with no warranty of accuracy: like any software it can contain errors, so always verify figures against your broker or the original source before acting on them. Trading and investing carry risk, including the risk of losing more than your initial outlay.

Spotted an error? Email [email protected] and it will be corrected. Maintained by Joey van Diest.