“Polkadot Knowledge Graph” is our entry-level article for Polkadot from zero to one. We try to start from the most basic part of Polkadot to provide you with a comprehensive understanding of Polkadot. Of course, this is a huge Engineering is also full of challenges. However, we hope that through such efforts, everyone can correctly understand Polkadot, and also allow people who do not know Polkadot to easily and quickly grasp the relevant knowledge of Polkadot. Today is the 43rd issue of this column, PoS mechanism Gradually becoming the mainstream, staking plays an important role in it. This issue of popular science will answer common questions about Polkadot staking.
Staking is a concept complementary to the PoS (Proof of Stake) mechanism, that is, Crypto holders obtain system rewards through a series of pledges such as voting, delegation, and token locking.
With the continuous development of the blockchain field, PoS consensus has gradually become the mainstream consensus mechanism.
The new PoS mechanism created by Polkadot – NPoS (Nominated Stake Proof), under this mechanism, Polkadot brings the original value of the blockchain to the extreme through Staking.
Token holders can not only participate in network governance and enjoy decision-making power, but also gain benefits from network inflation .
The PoS mechanism seems to be more suitable for the needs and development of current ecological projects. Therefore, this issue will answer some common questions about staking in Polkadot.
How to stake my DOT?
Thank you for considering nominating and staking your DOTs to secure the Polkadot network and its parachains. The success of Nominated Proof of Stake (NPoS) depends on well-informed nominees.
To directly submit your intent to stake on Polkadot, you should have an account with a non-custodial wallet that supports staking.
If you are a beginner, watch this tutorial on creating an account on the Polkadot-JS Extension. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sy7lvAqyzkY
Has more DOTs than the minimum intent threshold. This is a strict threshold determined by the on-chain protocol and is now 10 DOT .
Bind and nominate your DOTs to accepted validators (you can choose up to 16).
Read this article to learn how to choose a validator. https://support.polkadot.network/support/solutions/articles/65000150130
You will be rewarded when your stake is applied to one or more validators who entered the active set through NPoS election, which takes effect on the next era.
If you are a beginner and want to securely stake your tokens using the Polkadot-JS application, watch the video below https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCXC0CDhyS4
If you choose to stake through a custodial service such as a centralized exchange, you may not have to follow the steps above. By staking with an escrow service, you trust that they will act in your and the network’s best interests.
Be sure to read the terms and conditions carefully to understand the risks associated with the respective escrow staking services. (Not your key, not your token!).
When was Slashed?
Slashing occurs when a validator misbehaves in the network (such as going offline, attacking the network, or running modified software). They and their nominees will be Slashed for losing a percentage of their staked DOTs.
By choosing to nominate credible validators, you minimize the risk of being slashed and earn rewards for securing the network . Learn more about Slash here. https://wiki.polkadot.network/docs/learn-staking#slashing
Why am I not receiving staking rewards?
If you don’t see staking rewards on your account, it could be due to any of the following reasons.
Staking reward payment delay
Staking reward distribution is not automatic and needs to be triggered by a transaction. Typically, it’s the validator who triggers the staking reward payout transaction, but for some reason, if they don’t, you can claim the reward yourself.
The nominated validator is not in the active group
If the validator you nominated does not enter the active set in a certain era, you will not receive any rewards for that era. To maximize your chances of earning staking rewards per era, consider nominating multiple validators (up to 16 on Polkadot).
Nominated a validator with 100% commission
When your nominated validator earns 100% of the staking reward commission, you will not receive any era staking rewards when your nomination is applied to that particular validator.
Nominated an oversubscribed validator
Only the top 256 nominees of validators will receive staking rewards. If your nomination is applied to an oversubscribed validator and your staking does not get you into the top 256, you will not be rewarded.
Periodically ensure that the validators you choose are not oversubscribed.
Minimum activity nomination threshold not met
With the implementation of bag-list, the minimum staking threshold for obtaining staking rewards will change with each era. Not to be confused with the minimum intent threshold (10 DOT) required to submit your nomination intent.
The network supports the intent of 50,000 nominees, but at any given era, up to 22,500 nominees can be awarded .
If you nominate with 50 DOT, there is no guarantee that you will be in the top 22,500, so you may not receive staking rewards. Now, the barriers to entry to become an election nominee are dynamically determined based on market demand.
Nominators’ intent (up to 50,000) as a waitlist for the electoral subset (22,500) to be rewarded at each era.
Having more intentions of nominators than electoral subsets allows for some flexibility in the dynamic staking system.
For example, assuming the top 1,000 nominees all unstake their stakes, it becomes useful to have an additional buffer of nomination intent.
If your account is in the last bag of staking rewards
Within the scope of a single bag, nodes are not ordered by their Stake, but placed in insertion order. Accounts can use the bagsList.putInFrontOf extrinsic condition to put themselves in front of other accounts with lower staking in the same bag.
It’s worth noting that this process can only put you in front of accounts with lower Stakes in the same bag. Check out this article for instructions. https://support.polkadot.network/support/solutions/articles/65000181018-i-have-more-than-the-minimum-bonded-but-im-not-getting-rewards
Are there plans to reward every nominee?
yes! Polkadot’s staking system is one of the most complex in the blockchain ecosystem.
The validator pool of the relay chain not only protects the state transition of the relay chain itself, but also protects a potentially large number of parallel chains, referred to as parachains.
Since security is its main goal, Polkadot has designed a complex and rigid staking system optimized to lock the maximum number of tokens, while dispersing that staking as evenly as possible to maximize decentralization – all These goals are all to effectively reduce the possibility of the validator pool being corrupted.
In the current implementation, the optimal election scheme for a complex graph of nominators and validators maps needs to be evaluated within the execution time of a single block on the Polkadot network.
According to network benchmarks, 22,500 is considered a conservative estimate of the maximum number of nominees in a staking election solution. Since maximizing the total stake of the network is one of the key goals, this mechanism favors nominators with higher stakes.
To ensure that every nominee is rewarded, a direct solution being researched is a nomination/staking pool, which is still a work in progress .
There are also proposals for multi-block elections and a dedicated public interest parachain for NPoS on Polkadot.
In general, Polkadot’s staking can make nodes more decentralized and more secure than the general PoS mechanism’s staking. A lot of Staking economy can be extended around Staking, which is a valuable asset for Polkadot ecological projects and worth exploring.
Last week, we also published a related article ” Ethereum 2.0 is coming, the staking economy is getting a lot of attention, what kind of waves will the Polkadot ecosystem create? , and interested readers can click the link for details.