Axiom, Portal, HashKey, Kiln, Digital Infrastructure, Pontem and p0 are among the startups securing venture capital in January 2024.
Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission labeled Floki and its staking program a suspicious investment product.
The move could help improve network security as validators are more widely distributed across the world, developers said.
The crypto lender has 206,300 Ether (ETH) currently in the staking withdrawal queue, according to Nansen.
The blockchain-oracle project's "v0.2" staking program expanded the capacity to 45M LINK tokens from 25M, and the portion reserved for the community quickly filled up. The LINK token surged in price.
Polychain Capital and Hack VC led the Series A funding round of Babylon Chain, a protocol working on Bitcoin staking for proof-of-stake networks.
The staking market was the brightest spot in DeFi this year. The arrival of liquid staking token finance is set to turbocharge activity next year.