Staking is an essential feature of proof of stake (PoS) protocols. Large PoS protocols including Polygon, Solana and Polkadot allow users to stake native tokens and earn rewards. 

Blockchain node operators pledge tokens to a network for the opportunity to validate new transactions. The protocol issues newly minted tokens and/or a portion of transaction fees (i.e., gas fees) as a reward for correctly adding valid blocks to the blockchain, known as staking rewards. Certain actions (e.g., adding a corrupted block to the blockchain) may result in a validator having a portion of pledged tokens destroyed as a penalty in a function known as slashing. 

There are various iterations of proof of stake protocols and a host of features that accompany them. For a deep dive into PoS, we invite you to explore Cryptopedia.