Staking and Delegating
The Oasis Network is a proof-of-stake network. This means that the voting power of an entity in the network is determined by the amount of tokens staked to that entity. For example, this amount determines, how frequent the validator will be elected to propose a new block. Each epoch, the staking reward is distributed among the validators based on the amount of staked tokens. You can check out the current staking rewards in the Token metrics chapter.
But it's not just the validators that can stake. You can delegate your tokens to a validator and earn passive income, when the validator receives the staking reward. Of course, the validator may take their cut (the commission fee) for running the validator node hardware, but in essence staking improves the security of the network because paying the commission fee rewards good validators and expels the malicious ones. Keep in mind that the validator's misbehavior will result in slashing or even losing a portion of the staked tokens!
When you undelegate your tokens, you will need to wait the debonding period to pass in which you will not earn any rewards. Currently, this period is 336 epochs (~14 days).
How to Delegate?
Staking can only be performed on the consensus layer. Currently, the Oasis Wallet - Web and the Browser extension require that you delegate your tokens explicitly from your consensus account. The Oasis CLI and some dApps running in ParaTimes also allow you to implicitly delegate tokens from your ParaTime account.
Check out the current validator set, their escrow of staked tokens, the commission rate, and the availability in the Oasis Scan explorer.
Some validators prefer anonymity and they do not list their name or any contact information. In this case only their entity's Oasis address is shown.
Regardless of which validator you pick, you will earn the same reward as long as the validator is online, proposes and signs valid blocks. We recommend that you consider delegating your tokens to the ones without the largest delegations since this concentrates the voting power and potentially reduces the network security.
Once you decided which validator you want to delegate to, consult the following sections based on your wallet for a step-by-step walkthrough:
When you stake your tokens (the staking.Escrow transaction), you can reclaim
them at any time. Sending your tokens (the staking.Transfer transaction) on the
other hand means that the receiver will own the tokens and there is no way of
retrieving that tokens back by yourself.
If you happen to send your tokens to the validator instead of staking them, try contacting the validator via email or other channels listed on the block explorers and kindly ask them to send the tokens back to you. Know that it is completely up to them to send the tokens back and there is no other mechanism of doing it.
After you delegated your tokens, check your account balance. If the Escrow is correct, then congratulations, your tokens are successfully staked!
Some custody providers may also allow delegation of your tokens. Check out the [custody providers][custody-providers] chapter to learn more.
Become a validator yourself?
If you find the validator commission rates too high, you may be interested in running your own node and become a validator. You can get started here. Be sure to join the #node-operators channel on Discord and sign up for the node operator mailing list!