Week 4 of SheFi: Little Miss Staker
Four weeks in, and SheFi keeps surprising me. It’s not what I expected - but I’m enjoying it.
Omowonuola4 min read·Just now--
When I signed up I thought it would be more technical - maybe something closer to what I do day to day. Code. Logic. Building things. But it hasn’t been that at all. Each week I’m pleasantly surprised by what we cover - crypto, Web3, DeFi.
It’s not what I expected. But that’s not a bad thing.
Week 4 was all about staking. I went in excited. And then it kind of… washed over me. The content was fine, but I was a bit distracted. Some weeks land differently and that’s just how it goes. Not every lesson is going to be the wallet lesson (still the most stressful 20 minutes I’ve had so far).
OK, so what even is staking?
At its simplest: instead of your crypto just sitting in a wallet doing nothing, you put it to work. You lock it up to help secure a blockchain network through a mechanism called Proof-of-Stake, and earn rewards in return.
Think of it like being a guarantor on someone’s mortgage. When a bank asks for a guarantor, they want someone with something real to lose. You’re not just saying “I trust this” with your words, you’re backing it with something valuable. Staking works the same way. You lock up your crypto as collateral and earn rewards for keeping the network running honestly. But if things go wrong - going offline at the wrong time, accidentally double-signing a block, missing a software update - you get penalised and lose a portion of what you staked.
There are many more types of staking, including:
- Solo staking: You run your own validator node. Requires 32 ETH (roughly £50k right now). Respect to anyone doing this. Not for the faint-hearted
- Pooled staking: You and a bunch of other people combine your deposits to hit the 32 ETH threshold together. Much more accessible
- Liquid staking: This was the main focus of the lesson. You stake your crypto and get a token back. This is called an LST (Liquid Staking Token) that you can still use elsewhere in DeFi. So your money is working in two places at once. Platforms like Lido and Rocket Pool do this. Stake your ETH and you’d get something like stETH (Lido Staked ETH) back
- CEX staking: Through Coinbase or Binance. Easiest entry point, least control. Good starting point though
- Public Goods Staking: Instead of earning rewards just for yourself, your staking supports open-source projects and community builders. Which brings me to the part that perked me up a little - because for me, there’s nothing quite like actually doing the thing.
The RootstockCollective bit
As part of SheFi’s weekly quests, we received stRIF (staking RIF) tokens from RootstockCollective - those of us with a Trezor wallet got them directly, everyone else got them through the Base app. In the real world, you’d stake your RIF first to receive stRIF, but SheFi handed us the keys and let us get straight to the fun bit.
We used our stRIF to back builders - developers creating dApps (decentralised apps that run on the blockchain rather than being owned or controlled by any single company) on the Rootstock ecosystem. Do that, and you’re officially a Backer. Rewards accumulate every two weeks based on who you backed.
I backed two builders. It has now been two weeks. I still need to go and check what’s sitting there.
It won’t be a lot. But that’s not the point. The point is being part of it - backing real builders, participating in a real ecosystem, becoming part of the community. And honestly? You care a lot more about something when you’ve got tokens backed against it.
How the week felt
The theory part was fine, but the practical was definitely better. I think I just learn by doing. Probably comes with being an engineer.
What’s next
Week 5 - we’re entering the metaverse. Specifically, Decentraland. I have questions. But first, those rewards aren’t going to check themselves.
I’m Ola - a software engineer based in London and a Cohort 16 member of SheFi. Follow along on X and LinkedIn.
