Darwinia Mainnet Launch | Stage 1: How To Stake

6 min readSep 26, 2020

Staking is a consensus mechanism based on PoS (Proof of Stake). Token holders obtain rewards and benefits through staking, nominating, delegation, and locking.
A small amount of RINGs must be prepared in Darwinia Network’s address as fee.

Want to get rewards by participating in staking? You need to be a validator or nominator. This article will help you.

What can you get through staking

In the first year, the inflation rate of RING is about 4%, and it is distributed in the form of block rewards, half of which is allocated to Validators and Nominators, and the other half is put into the Treasury.

Those RINGs that are allocated to Validators and Nominators, half of which are allocated to the RING staking, and the other half is allocated to the KTON staking.

Become a validator

If you want to be a validator, you need to run a validator node yourself.

Prepare your session key

▶︎ Run your validator node in rpc unsafe mode.

./darwinia --name <NAME> --base-path <DATA_DIR> --validator  --unsafe-rpc-external --rpc-methods=UnsafeOr docker:docker run -d -v <DATA_DIR>:/data -p 30333:30333 -p 9933:9933 darwinianetwork/darwinia:v0.7.0 --name <NAME> --base-path /data --validator  --unsafe-rpc-external --rpc-methods=Unsafe

▶︎ Run the command on the shell where your validator node is running:

curl http://127.0.0.1:9933 -H “Content-Type:application/json;charset=utf-8” -d ‘ { “jsonrpc”:”2.0",”id”:1,”method”:”author_rotateKeys”,”params”: []}’

▶︎ If there is no problem, a result similar to the following will be returned:

{“jsonrpc”:”2.0",”result”:”0xba99ecfb4a87357a44ee2765cf617a6d81adf8f43e522db52e348d2f9d45ccde12d53d562e14bb18522fbc3032b786f44b2b92240f4756386d4baec68bbfb882bbabcce1440c84d7f5b67c8ecb956345100d5dbd07adfeba3d9482f95d9dec6c68d085323e61590f850c38244dd2c2bc4055548d9edfd0471f47da7667c17fe8",”id”:1}

▶︎ The result is what you need when setting the session key.

Staking

▶︎ Go to Darwinia Wallet and click the [Staking] button on the left, and then click [Staking now]:

▶︎ Bond

Stash account. Account for stashing tokens. Tokens participating in staking will come from this account. The operations of this account are mostly related to changes in stash.
Controller account. The controller is the account that will be used to control any nominating or validating actions. Please keep the same as the stash account at current stage.
Value bonded. The total amount of the stash balance that will be at stake in any forthcoming rounds (should be less than the total amount available). This part of the tokens will be temporarily bonded. bonding takes 14 days to unbond; you can choose to bond RING or KTON.
Payment destination. The destination account for any payment as either a nominator or validator.
Lock limit (Optional); bond RING promise for 1–36 months to get additional KTON rewards. (Promise to lock to accept user terms)
Note: If you unlock RING in advance within the lock limit, you will be charged a penalty of 3 times the KTON reward (In the absence of sufficient KTON, the RING can not be used for payment of fines).

▶︎ After filling in the staking parameters, please click [Sign and Submit]

Set session key

▶︎ Click [Set session key] on this page, completing the generated session key and submit.

Note: The session key must be filled with real data, otherwise it will result in missing blocks and be slashed.

▶︎ After confirming, click [Sign and Submit]

Note: The identities of the validator and the nominator are mutually exclusive and cannot coexist. If you are running a validator, you need to cancel the validator before proceeding with the nomination.

Validate

▶︎ Click [Validate] and set the validator parameters

Reward commission percentage Set the proportion of the node’s priority distribution of income, the range is 0–100.
(Example: If a 5% reward commission is set, this node will first receive 5% of the node’s revenue, and the remaining 95% of the node’s revenue will be distributed in proportion to the amount of mortgages validated by the validator and nominator; Validator’s income = node reward commission + mortgage reward share)

▶︎ After confirming, click [Sign and Submit]

▶︎ Go to [Staking Info] to view information about validators

Note: The operation of validating will take effect after the first epoch of the next era (about 24 hours). Prior to this, the validator will be in the [waiting] list.

(Optional) Rerun your validator node

▶︎ For security, you need to remove the rpc unsafe parameters and re-run your node:

./darwinia --name <NAME> --base-path <DATA_DIR> --validatorOr docker:docker run -it -v <DATA_DIR>:/data -p 30333:30333 darwinianetwork/darwinia:v0.7.0 --name <NAME> --base-path /data --validator

(Optional) Other operations

There are other operations in staking for the following purposes:

Stop validating Leave the validator queue.
Bond & Bond More. Adds bonded tokens for staking to obtain more power.
Unbond. Unbound tokens for staking, and at the same time the power will be reduced proportionally.
note: The 14-day bond period is required to unbond. Tokens that are in the bond period cannot be operated. Please be careful.
Reward History. goes to SUBSCAN explorer to view historical reward records
Claim reward. Manually claim the reward, and the reward will be distributed in units of era.
note: after 56 era (about 56 days), you will not be able to claim it.
Change controller account. Change the account that will be used to control any nominating or validating actions. Should not match another stash or controller.
Change reward destination. Change the destination account for any payment as either a nominator or validator.
Set on-chain identity. Set your personal information, such as display, legal name, email, website, twitter and riot. Other users can view this information and contact you.