The problem nobody was talking about
If you've ever tried to stake crypto on centralized exchanges (CEXs) beyond just clicking "stake" on Binance, you've probably run into the same wall I did: the rates are all over the place, every exchange structures their offers differently, and there's no obvious answer to the question - where should I actually put my money?
Here's a concrete example. You have 10,000 USDT you want to stake. You open five browser tabs: Binance, KuCoin, OKX, Bybit, Gate.io. Each one has a different APR. Some offer flexible staking. Some have locked periods. Some have tiered bonus rates - 8% for the first 5,000, then 10% for anything above. Do you split your funds? Take the lock for higher yield? Go all in on the top rate?
Most people just go with Binance because it's familiar. They're leaving real yield on the table.
That's the problem StakingRadar was already solving with its comparison table - but comparison alone isn't enough. Knowing that Exchange A has 10% and Exchange B has 12% still leaves you with the hard part: actually figuring out what to do.
So I built the Staking Optimizer.
What the Optimizer does
The Staking Optimizer takes your portfolio, a list of assets and amounts, and tells you exactly where to allocate them to maximize your staking yield. Input your coins and amounts, hit optimize, and get a concrete allocation plan broken down per coin, per exchange, with effective APRs.
The output looks something like: "Put 5,000 USDT on KuCoin at 10% (bonus tier), 5,000 USDT on OKX at 12% (locked 30 days). Weighted APR: 11%. Binance would give you 8.2%. You're earning 34% more."
It also renders a 13-month compound growth chart so you can see the difference visually - not just in percentages, but in actual dollar projections.
The technical decisions that made it interesting
Representing staking as slots
The first problem I hit: staking options from different exchanges don't have a uniform structure. Some have a single flat rate. Some have multiple tiers where a higher deposit gets you a better rate. Some have a cap on how much you can stake at the best rate.
So, I modeled all of these as slots - individual chunks of capacity at a specific interest rate:
type Slot = {
exchangeId: string;
interest: number; // APR %
capacity: number; // Max amount at this rate
lockPeriod?: number;
isPromo: boolean;
isBonus: boolean;
}
An exchange offering "8% for 0–5,000 USDT, 10% for 5,000+ USDT" becomes two slots: { interest: 8, capacity: 5000 } and { interest: 10, capacity: Infinity }. This normalization was the key insight - once everything is a slot, the allocation problem becomes tractable.
Two allocation modes
I ship two strategies behind a toggle:
Single Best: For each coin, compute the effective APR each exchange would offer on the full amount, pick the highest, allocate everything there. Simple, conservative, works well when one option dominates.
Maximize Profits (greedy): Sort all slots across all exchanges by interest rate descending. Fill them in order until the full amount is allocated. This shines when the top rate has a capacity cap and the second-best exchange has room for the remainder.
function greedyAllocate(slots: Slot[], amount: number): Allocation[] {
slots.sort((a, b) => b.interest - a.interest);
let remaining = amount;
const allocations: Allocation[] = [];
for (const slot of slots) {
if (remaining <= 0) break;
const fill = Math.min(remaining, slot.capacity);
allocations.push({ ...slot, amount: fill });
remaining -= fill;
}
return allocations;
}
The greedy approach is optimal when slots don't overlap in capacity, which in practice, they don't. Each exchange's staking pool is independent.
Filtering out noise
Not every rate in a database is a real staking option. CEXs frequently run short-term promotions like 7-day or 14-day locks at inflated APRs to attract deposits for a specific event. Including these in optimization results would be misleading.
We filter out any lock periods under 30 days. This keeps the optimizer focused on sustainable yields rather than temporary promotions that users can't rely on for portfolio planning.
The Binance baseline
Every result is benchmarked against what you'd earn on Binance. This wasn't just a product decision — it's the most useful reference point for most users. Binance is the default for a huge segment of the market. Showing "you'd earn 34% more yield with this allocation vs just using Binance" is concrete and immediately actionable.
Compound interest for projections
The growth chart uses daily compound interest rather than simple interest:
finalAmount = principal × (1 + APR/100/365)^days
Over 13 months, the divergence between a simple calculation and daily compounding becomes meaningful, especially for larger portfolios. We plot monthly checkpoints for both the optimized and Binance scenarios.
What I learned about product scope
The algorithm itself wasn't the hard part. The hard part was deciding what the optimizer shouldn't do.
Early on, I considered cross-exchange arbitrage suggestions, DeFi protocol comparisons, tax impact estimates, and rebalancing recommendations. Every one of these is genuinely useful - and every one of them would have delayed shipping by weeks.
So, I cut everything to the core: given this capital, given these assets, what's the best CEX staking allocation right now? That's the question users come with. Answer that one thing well.
The settings surface this philosophy too. Two toggles:
- Include locked staking - do you want higher yields with a lock-up, or do you need flexibility?
- Maximize profits mode - do you want to split across exchanges or keep it simple?
Two checkboxes. That's enough for the first version.
Stack
- Backend: Express.js + TypeScript. The optimizer runs as a single service with a clean interface, takes a list of coins and amounts, returns allocations and summary stats.
- Frontend: Nuxt 3 + Vue 3. The optimizer page is a single page handling form state, results display, and chart rendering.
- Chart: Chart.js rendered via a LineChart.vue component, plotting compound growth projections with gradient fills for the optimized vs baseline comparison.
- Database: MongoDB storing staking records per coin per exchange, with support for bonus tier arrays on each record.
Try It
The Staking Optimizer is live at stakingradar.com/crypto-staking-optimizer.
Input your coins, set your preferences, and see how much yield you're leaving on the table. If you've been defaulting to Binance for everything, you might be surprised.